Well, this is some rather cool news as everyone’s favourite Scottish Comedic legend has been announced to be joining Peter Jackson in New Zealand in The Hobbit! Connolly will play the role of Dain Ironfoot, a great dwarf warrior and cousin of Thorin Oakenshield.

According to Deadline:

Billy Connolly is to join the cast in the role of Dain Ironfoot, a great dwarf warrior and cousin of Thorin Oakenshield. “We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the stanchest and toughest of Dwarves, than Billy Connolly, the Big Yin himself.

They go on to say that with Connolly now cast in this role, casting is now complete and after the amazing first trailer for the first part of the 2-part saga, I cannot wait to see it!

Source: Deadline

At this week’s second UK premiere* for A Dangerous Method, we spoke to Viggo Mortenson about the attraction of working with David Cronenberg.He explained,
“He makes what can sometimes be a very trying or difficult job, or emotionally demanding, he makes easy and fun. He never loses sight of the fact that, after all it’s play, it’s make believe. It should be fun, there’s no reason for it not to be, and he helps you feel that way too. There’s a lot of directors – I would say, more often than not, directors forget that. They feel the pressure, or they take themselves or what they’re doing too seriously.”

When asked whether he was referring to directors he has worked with he continued,

“I don’t think there’s many directors like him, who are so secure as people. That have such technical knowledge, and actually like actors – a lot of directors don’t. Don’t understand them, don’t want to understand them, feel threatened by them and the suggestions that they have. He’s not.”

Now file this under speculation, but I’m guessing Peter Jackson doesn’t count as one of the ‘secure’ people, at least not in Mortensen’s eyes. The actor hasn’t been brought back for a cameo in the Hobbit, in spite of seeming quite keen to do so. Perhaps this could be why.

During the evening we also caught up with Kiera Knightly, who explained that the film was very nearly much more tame,

“I was in doubt about doing it because of two specific scenes in the film that are of a sadomasochistic nature, and I actually phoned up David and I said, ‘look, I love you, I love your work, I love the script but I don’t know if I want to do this. It’s the age of the internet, we know what the British press are like’, and he said, ‘OK, we’ll take them out’.”

Fortunately she managed to talk Cronenberg round,

“I actually thought, the reason I’d phoned him up to turn it down is because I thought it was really important that they were in there. I didn’t think it was gratuitous to have them in there. I thought it was incredibly important, if you were going to make a film about Freud and Yung, and about this woman who was torn apart by her sexual desires, in that medium you can’t not see what you’re talking about. So anyway, we talked about it and talked about it and kind of got into what it was in her that meant that she needed to do that, and exactly how he was going to shoot it. And the fact that he didn’t want to make it sexy or voyeuristic, but kind of brutal and strangely clinical, I went, ‘OK, let’s do it’.”

*You read that right. It originally premiered at the London Film Festival in October, but apparently that doesn’t count, so we got another one.

We’ve been absolutely loving all the posters and images that LEGO have been releasing for their new Lord of the Rings range and tonight we have the full set of character images (which coincide with the ones we posted last week) but the highlight is the new poster or the Gollum character played by Andy Serkis in the movie(s)! We’ve previously had Legolas, Aragorn, Frodo and you can see them all here.

Now all I need is for someone to send me a set to review! Pretty please!

You can see all our coverage of The Hobbit here including images and the amazing trailer.

Source: Collider

We’re now less than eleven months away from Peter Jackson’s return to Middle-earth with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of his two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original novel, followed by The Hobbit: There And Back Again next December.

We’ve seen and heard some fantastic things from the new film already, most recently including Evangeline Lilly updating us on her character, Tauriel, created especially for the film. She spoke to Yahoo Movies about her preparations for the role, with thanks to ComicBookMovie for the heads up, and in the same report, Yahoo have put out a great new picture of Martin Freeman as Bilbo, almost lost amongst the dwarves.

“The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.”

We recently saw a much darker image of Freeman this month with his faithful sword, Sting, and this new image looks similar to the first images we saw from the film, still in The Shire. Alongside Freeman, we can look forward to seeing many new and familiar faces, including Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee.

The Hobbit will be released in 3D with An Unexpected Journey kicking things off on 14^th December this year, followed by There and Back Again on 13^th December next year. Until then, here’s the new image, which you can click to enlarge. And in case you missed it at the end of last year, you can watch the wonderful first trailer right here, as well as everything else The Hobbit-related here. If you’d like to read more about Lilly’s preparations for the role, click through over here. Enjoy.

*Advanced Plot Spoiler Warning: As you can probably guess from the title, things are going to get a little spoiler-y in a few lines, so if you’re wanting to fly fairly blind with The Hobbit, then look away now!*

We first got word way back in June last year that Evangeline Lilly had been cast in Peter Jackson’s return to Middle-earth in The Hobbit. When the announcement came, Jackson told us that Lilly would be playing a character created especially for the film, which is expected to develop the novel in its adaptation, spanning over two parts:

“Evangeline Lilly will be playing a new character—the Woodland Elf, Tauriel. Her name means ‘daughter of Mirkwood’ and, beyond that, we must leave you guessing! (No, there is no romantic connection to Legolas.)”

Whilst doing an interview with EW for the release of Real Steel on DVD/Blu-Ray this week in the States (we’ll be getting it on 20th February here), Lilly spoke more about her character, revealing some really interesting details:

“EW: Speaking of small and little, I’d be remiss not to bring up The Hobbit. You’re playing a new character named Tauriel, who’s a Mirkwood elf, and that would lead me to believe that she is a warrior of some kind. Did you have to learn archery and swordplay?

Lilly: Yes, she is a warrior. She’s actually the head of the Elven guard. She’s the big shot in the army. So she knows how to wield any weapon, but the primary weapons that she uses are a bow and arrow and two daggers. And she’s lethal and deadly. You definitely wouldn’t want to be caught in a dark alley next to Tauriel.

EW: So then Tauriel must be involved with the dwarves being captured…

Lilly: I think basically what you’re asking is if she’s in the film very much. She’s not in the first film very much. She comes into the first film near the end, and has a very small part to play. Her role in the second film is much more involved. Although, I have to say, when I first read the scripts and took the job, she had a lot less going on in the second film. I think the role is becoming a bit more demanding than I had expected it to be. There’s a lot more for me to do now, which is a lot of fun, but it’s a little more pressure.”

Definitely interesting, especially the fact that she’ll be really involved in the second film in particular. Best known for her work on TV’s Lost, Real Steel last year, and that little-known Oscar winner, The Hurt Locker, Lilly is a fantastic actress, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her in this role, not least because it’s been entirely created for the film.

Time for a bit of 100% good old-fashioned guess-work: It’s looking as though she’ll be playing the female lead in the second film, which makes me wonder if her role will also be a romantic interest. Jackson clearly stated that she’s not a romantic connection to Legolas, but I’d quietly place a small wager (which I would adamantly deny if proven wrong when the films are released) on her being involved somehow with Luke Evans’ character, Bard the Grim, also known as Bard the Bowman.

His character is being likened to that of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, and when the announcement of his involvement came (at the same time as Lilly’s), it was said that he’d be playing a larger role in the second film. So, I could be adding two and two to make five, but it sounds as though there could be a similar relationship to Aragon and Arwen in Tauriel and Bard. Either way, we’ll have to wait until at least December this year, if not December next year with the second part, to find out if I’m right.

Along with Lilly and Evans, the fantastic cast includes both new and familiar faces in the forms of Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee.

The first part, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will be with us on 14th December this year, followed by the second, The Hobbit: There And Back Again, on 13th December next year. If you’ve missed any of our coverage of the films so far, you can catch up on it all right here. I’d particularly recommend the rather brilliant first trailer that Jackson treated us to for Christmas last month.

With Peter Jackson’s return to Middle-earth just on the horizon, with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey due out in December this year, and The Hobbit: There And Back Again set to come out a year later, LEGO confirmed at the end of last year that they’d picked up the rights to release sets of their little figures for both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

We got a brilliant first look at Aragorn and Frodo from The Lord of the Rings just over a week ago, and now we have a great new poster for Legolas to share with you, courtesy of Collider. Interestingly, the first poster of Aragorn had ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ as its title, and this new poster has ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’ for a title, which suggests that we might be treated to a whole set for each of the three LOTR films.

The character was of course superbly played by Orlando Bloom in the original trilogy, and the new figurine looks to be emulating the actor’s strong jaw structure, which is both attention to detail and a little amusing. He’ll be coming complete with a sword as well as a bow and arrow set, well known for being an impressive marksman.

Bloom will be reprising his role as Legolas in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit two-parter, joining a cast that includes Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee. To catch up on all our coverage for The Hobbit, including the brilliant trailer that hit last month, you just have to click here.

The LEGO sets for The Lord of the Rings are expected to go on sale starting from June, and we can no doubt look forward to the sets for The Hobbit upon the release of the two parts of the film. For now, here’s the brilliant new image of LEGO Legolas, and as usual, click to enlarge.

For a little over half a year, we’ve been treated to some brilliant things from Peter Jackson’s return to Middle-earth in bringing Tolkien’s The Hobbit to life, all of which you can catch up on right here. Just before Christmas, we were given an excellent new look at the film when the first trailer hit the web, and it was pretty brilliant. Fans of the original The Lord of the Rings will not be disappointed.

We’ve now got a great new image from the film to share with you, courtesy of Hero Complex via Collider, and it shows Martin Freeman as the young Bilbo Baggins looking pretty rough around the edges and somewhat world-weary, with one hand clasped around his sword, Sting.

As you’re no doubt already aware, The Hobbit will be released in two parts and in 3D, first with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and then The Hobbit: There And Back Again. The cast that Jackson has lined up is rather fantastic too, with many familiar faces as well as plenty of new ones joining the cast. Alongside Freeman, we can look forward to seeing Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee.

“The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.”

(*Potential plot spoiler coming up; this is your warning!*) It’s been a long time since I read The Hobbit, so alas I can’t quite place the new image in the plot of the film myself. Freeman looks rather cobwebby though, so with a bit of help from Wikipedia…

“Great Spiders:

The Hobbit describes a colony of sapient and over-sized spiders in the northern parts of Mirkwood at the end of the Third Age. The Elves of Thranduil’s realm tried unsuccessfully to exterminate them. During the events of the book, Thorin’s company was captured by spiders and enmeshed in webs; however, Bilbo Baggins managed to free them with the aid of his sword Sting and his magic ring.”

That sounds about right to me. Essentially, expect this scene to be pretty awesome. (Small aside: I really like Richard Armitage for the role of Thorin. I think he’s going to be great in it.)

An Unexpected Journey will be with us in just under a year on 14th December, followed a year later by There And Back Again on 13th December, 2013. Without further ado, here’s the great new image of Freeman as Bilbo. As usual, click to enlarge and take in all the tiny details.

Last night we went image crazy as USA Today released a nice new batch of images from multiple movies including Ridley Scott’s Prometheus as well as first look images from Skyfall, The Bourne Legacy and loads more. Here’s one for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey which shows us another view of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. If you missed the trailer for the movie, you can watch it here.

Synopsis: The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins , who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey , Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins​ not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey stars Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee, Mikael Persbrandt, James Nesbitt, Brian Blessed, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Fry, Elijah Wood, Benedict Cumberbatch and Evangeline Lilly.

Source: USA Today

Indeed our cup runneth over with Hobbit goodness this week.

Following the first look at the film with the highly anticipated trailer and poster appearing online Peter Jackson has given us another of his pre-DVD extras in the form of Production Video #5.

As usual there’s much to enjoy here from Jackson and the team in New Zealand though it does have the unfortunate side effect of reminding us that it’s an entire year until the film is out…

The film’s Facebook page debuted the video which comes to us below from The Film Stage. Enjoy!

(And there’s a fair chance that this will be the last post on HeyUuys before Christmas let me wish you an enormously happy Christmas.)

Here’s the video,

Vin Diesel has pretty much put rumours of a sixth and seventh Fast and the Furious film to rest this week by stepping out of the shadows to pretty much (two important words there) confirm them.

Speaking on the writing process of the much touted sixth film (a process that I’m sure is ably aided by a veritable surfeit of Hot Wheels miniatures and a lot of vroom vroom sound effects) he has stated:

With the success of this last one, and the inclusion of so many characters, and the broadening of scope, when we were sitting down to figure out what would fit into the real estate of number six, we didn’t have enough space. We have to pay off this story, we have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages.

To this he added that the studio said “you can’t fit all that story in one damn movie!” which for my money is Universal braying for two films worth of box-office, what with their engine currently running on last year’s Fast Five dollars and all.

Director Justin Lin is confirmed for the sixth and everyone seems to be assuming that he and the cast will return for both new outings considering that most of them are pretty much box-office poison outside of the franchise (and by most of them I ironically mean the two leads stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker). Even so that’s no bad thing because as long as you lobotomised yourself on the way in Fast Five was undoubtedly rollicking good fun.

It’s yet to be seen whether the two films will be stand-alone pieces or whether they will form one two-part contiguous story but either way I’m excited. Whilst they won’t be anything like The Hobbit or Harry Potter 7 they will definitely rival them as pieces of all out entertainment.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

So we’ve had the first amazing trailer and now we get the first poster for Peter Jackson’s new movie, The Hobbit. I decided to put the teaser trailer artwork in a separate post as Apple did such a terrible job getting the trailer out, it’s been an age since that went up so I thought it deserved it’s own one. In the poster, we get to see Bilbo (Martin Freeman) wandering out of his house at Bag End.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey stars Martin Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood​, Hugo Weaving,  Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee​, Andy Serkis​, Ian Holm,Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt​, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Like Jon said in the previous post, it’s going to be a long year until December 14th when it’s released.

The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins , who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins​ not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Source: Apple

After many years of rumours, financial hardship and a long quest to find a director we are once again walking in Middle Earth with Peter Jackson.

The first trailer for The Hobbit has arrived and the long wait has been worth it, Several familiar faces return to Hobbiton and beyond with Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood​, Hugo Weaving,  Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee​, Andy Serkis​ and Ian Holm being joined by newcomers Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Here’s a handy synopsis,

The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins , who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

It’s going to be a long year… Let us know your thoughts in the comments on this first look trailer!

Update: We’ve just added the first teaser trailer artworkfor your viewing pleasure here.

Source: Apple

We’ve had conflicting reports on time but news is that the first trailer for director Peter Jackson’s new movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be hitting the interwebs this evening. Everyone is completely buzzing about this new movie which will be released 14th December 2012 and then to be followed by Part 2, The Hobbit: There and Back Again on 13th December 2013. These dates are crazy especially as they are almost exactly one and two years away from now but we have no doubt that the buzz for these films stand the test of time.

Warner Bros. have their slate nailed at the moment with The Dark Knight Rises trailer being released last night meaning both their summer and winter will be sorted for box office tickets in 2012 and let’s hope both franchises live up to their expectations. Today we have some new low-res images for you courtesy of scans from Total Film magazine in their ‘Coming in 2012′ section via CBM. In the images, we get to see Bilbo Baggins played by Martin Freeman with his trademark massive Hobbit feet. There’s also some images of the other Hobbits which now look a far cry away from the comedy production videos that we’ve seen previously. These look dark and depressing and very Lord of the Rings esk which is exactly what we want!

Scroll down to view the images. We’ve already seen the Martin Freeman close up image but this one is higher res from the Facebook page.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey stars Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee, Mikael Persbrandt, James Nesbitt, Brian Blessed, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Fry, Elijah Wood, Benedict Cumberbatch and Evangeline Lilly.

Earlier this evening I put up the news that Warner Bros. had officially announced that the first trailer for The Hobbit will sit in front of Tintin in the US and no sooner had I put up the news than CBM have placed a nice new image of Martin Freeman aka Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey which is released 14th December 2012.

This new images comes from the January issue of Empire Magazine and is a lovely way to end the week.  As well as Freeman, The Hobbit stars Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving, Lee Pace, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis, Ian Holm, James Nesbitt, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch and is directed by Peter Jackson. I cannot wait to see it. Now all we need a is a trailer please!

Synopsis: The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins , who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey , Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Warner Bros. have just announced on via their Twitter account that The Hobbit Trailer for An Unexpected Journey will sit in front of Tintin when it hits the US on the 21st December which is all well and good but the question I have is when will we be seeing it in the UK? Most likely, it’ll hit the interwebs before that date but selfishly (and just like everyone else!), I want to see it! We’ll keep you informed if we get any further info but for now, we know it’s coming and I cannot wait to see it!!! (did I say that already?!)

The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey will be with us in the UK 13th December 2012 which, I’m pleased to report is a week before the US! YAY!

Synopsis: The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins , who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey , Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Several of our writers at HeyUGuys, including our two editors, have young children, and therefore a legitimate excuse to watch Children’s TV. I, on the other hand, don’t. On the other hand, I am barely employed (and barely employable), so am far better versed in the ins-and-outs of children’s TV than I have any right to be. Consequently, when I was asked to head to the Park Lane Hilton to film my far more respectable colleague Paris Davis as she interviewed the arrivals on the red carpet, I leapt at the chance. After all, it’s not every day I get to be in the same room as Dick and Dom, Mr Tumble and Helen Skelton. Certainly not all at once.

Of course, it wasn’t just children’s TV presenters, and during the course of the night we spoke to Simon Farnaby, Bunny and the Bull’s ‘Bunny’ about the feature script he is writing with Julian Barratt, and comedian Jack Whitehall about auditioning for Harry Potter and The Hobbit. We also found out TV legend John Craven and BBC political editor Nick Robinson’s favourite films.

And if that wasn’t enough for you, we also caught up with Warwick Davis in the press room, shortly after he had collected the first of two awards won by Harry Potter films during the evening. During our conversation he spoke about how it felt to be collecting an award on behalf of the Harry Potter cast and crew, as well as his desire to have his own talk show.

Guy Ritchie’s upcoming sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, is one of the films I’ve been looking forward to all year, and it’s just a matter of weeks now until we get to see it on the big screen next month.

As if there weren’t enough reasons to see it already, with its impeccable cast featuring the return of Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law as the iconic Sherlock Holmes and Watson, with additions including Jared Harris as the notorious Moriarty, Stephen Fry as Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, and Noomi Rapace as the mysterious Sim, with Rachel McAdams reprising her role as Irene Adler, Collider are now reporting that the film is likely set to have two fantastic trailers attached before it in the form of The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

We heard from Andy Serkis just a few days ago that we should be lucky enough to have a teaser for the film in time for Christmas, and it looks like he was right! At the time, it was considered possible that the film might be attached to The Adventures of Tintin in America, which wouldn’t be very helpful for us, since we’ve already had Tintin in our cinemas! But thankfully it’s looking likely now that it will be A Game of Shadows that gets The Hobbit, which is one more brilliant reason to head to the cinema next month when it comes out.

If you caught Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 this summer in the cinema, you’ll no doubt remember that this was the setting of our first look at footage from Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. I love that teaser trailer so much, and found myself watching it over and over when it made its way online. If that first teaser is anything to go by, the film is going to be utterly epic, and you can be sure that our second look at the film next month is going to be brilliant just like the first.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows will be hitting our cinemas on 16th December, and by the sounds of it, you’re definitely going to want to make sure you get to the cinema on time to see the trailers when you see it. It’s going to be an awesome cinematic experience before the film even starts!

Until then, you can catch up on all of our coverage of the three films to keep you entertained. You can check out everything Holmes-related here, everything Batman-related here, and everything Hobbit-related here. They’re all going to be brilliant. For no reason other than the fact that I love it, I’ve decided to embed the first teaser for The Dark Knight Rises below. Enjoy. It’s immense.

To watch more, visit tag

On the off chance you’ve not been at a computer for several months, you might have missed out on the fact that the beloved Peter Jackson is returning to Middle-earth to bring Tolkien’s The Hobbit to life. And if you have, then you can catch up on all things Hobbit-related here. Most recently we’ve had the fourth instalment of the production video diaries he’s so nicely been giving us.

The latest news from Middle-earth is pretty exciting, with IGN reporting, via The Playlist, that Andy Serkis – who is reprising his role as Gollum, and taking on that of the Second Unit Director – has said that the teaser trailer for the first part, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, should be surfacing by Christmas.

“There will be a trailer fairly soon, actually. Around Christmas time, I believe.”

IGN suggest that this means that the film will be attached to either Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows or The Adventures of Tintin, with their vote falling with the latter given Jackson has produced the film. Since we’ve already seen Tintin’s release here in the UK, I’m personally rooting for the former!

If it does get put ahead of Tintin, though, let’s all keep our fingers and toes crossed here in the UK and elsewhere that’s already seen Tintin released that the trailer will also go online, and in stunning HD quality too. Because you just know that any visuals they give us are going to be immense.

An Unexpected Journey is due out on 14th December, 2012, with There And Back Again coming a year later on 13th December, 2013. With their respective December releases, it seems somewhat apt to give us our first trailer come Christmas this year.

We got the third video diary for Peter Jackson’s return to Middle-earth back in July, and now he’s given us the fourth instalment through his Facebook page, because he’s pretty awesome like that.

In case you’ve missed them, you can catch up on all the earlier video diaries from The Hobbit and everything else surrounding the project right here.

This latest production video predominantly looks at the 3D filming aspect of the project, and it’s really interesting, with Jackson and the filming crew giving us a very insightful view of how they’re making this film.

According to the video, they’ve got 48 Red Epic cameras, each with its own individual name, which is pretty ridiculously awesome. Each of those cameras has a price tag of no less than $10,000, so if they were all retail price (naturally, they’re not going to be), that’s half a million dollars just on those cameras right there! And they visually show us how much their cameras just utterly out-do our 1080 TV screens and monitors, just to make us feel good about ourselves.

Ain’t It Cool News have also been visiting the set of the film, and have got some great photos of Bilbo and Jackson in Bag End, and if you want to read their report of the set visit, then you can go ahead and click over here.

As I’m sure you’re already aware, the two-parter has a pretty fantastic cast, including Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee.

At the end of the video, Jackson tells us that they’re about to move on to shooting on location, and that the next video he brings us will be from wherever they’re shooting in a few months’ time – so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that, because it will undoubtedly be filled with amazing landscapes.

The Hobbit will be coming to us in two parts. The first, An Unexpected Journey, will be hitting cinemas at the end of next year on 14th December; and the second, There And Back Again, will be back a year later on 13th December, 2013. As you can imagine, it’s going to be awesome. Without further ado, here’s the brilliant new production video diary, followed by a few photos from the set, which you can click to enlarge. And if you want to see the video in glorious HD, then you can head over to Jackson’s Facebook page here.

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/11/04/must-watch-elijah-wood-martin-freeman-fighting-dwarves-and-3d-in-the-hobbit-production-video-diary-%e2%80%93-part-4/feed/ 0 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/09/30/happy-birthday-pinewood-studios-75-today/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/09/30/happy-birthday-pinewood-studios-75-today/#comments Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:46:18 +0000 Dave Roper http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=109319

Nestled a few miles west of London sits Pinewood Studios, still looking as sprightly as ever, but having today reached the grand old age of 75.

And what a 75 years it has been. Though the landscape of cinema has changed beyond recognition in that time (fads have come and gone, new filming techniques have been developed and refined, entire genres have been popularised, then forgotten, then revived), Pinewood remains.

Bought by building tycoon Charles Boot in the early 1930′s, Pinewood was then turned into a studio through a joint venture between Boot and J Arthur Rank, the name being settled on because according to Boot:-

“of the number of trees which grow there and because it seemed to suggest something of the American film centre in its second syllable.”

The studios officially opened their doors on 30th September 1936 and since then has been home to some of the largest scale productions imaginable. The 007 stage was built for The Spy Who Loved Me in the late 1970′s and has accommodated a whole host of Bondian adventures up to and including Quantum of Solace. Check out the video below for the mind-boggling dimensions of this legendary stage.

What else has Pinewood been home to I hear you ask? Try this lot on for size:-

• Much of Michael Powell’s early output, including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and Peeping Tom
• A Night To Remember, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Ipcress File
• Superman, Bugsy Malone, Battle of Britain
• Clash of the Titans (1981), Little Shop of Horrors, Santa Claus: The Movie, Patriot Games, Mission: Impossible
• Patriot Games, The Fifth Element, Event Horizon, Alien 3, Batman
• Tomb Raider, United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum, Captain America, The Dark Knight, HP and the Deathly Hallows
• The Hobbit, Hugo, Kick-Ass, Aliens, Children of Men

I could go on. At some length. What an almighty legacy. The studio continues to thrive, with Tim Burton returning after Sweeney Todd and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to shoot his next film, Dark Shadows there. The Hobbit and Snow White & The Huntsman are hardly small-fry either.

So if you have them to hand, raise your glasses to Pinewood Studios and its “diamond plus something but not yet platinum” anniversary. What is my favourite of what has been shot there so far? It’s probably not The Da Vinci Code or Tomb Raider. Gosh, this is like trying to pick your favourite child. I guess it would have to be either Aliens or The Bourne Ultimatum. What’s yours?