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After a drawn-out and troubled development process, the names and release dates of Peter Jackson’s two upcoming films based on JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit have finally been announced.
The first film will be called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and will be released in December of 2012. Next, The Hobbit: There and Back Again is scheduled to be distributed one year later.
After MGM and Warner Bros. battled for distribution rights, filming of both Lord of The Rings prequels in New Zealand faced production delays including a dispute over actors’ wages and Jackson’s personal health problems. Principal photography of the films commenced in Wellington, New Zealand in March of 2011 and is now underway.
English actor Martin Freeman will star as reluctant hero Bilbo Baggins in the highly anticipated fantasy-adventure films and many of the stars from the original Lord of the Rings pictures will reprise their roles including Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, and Orlando Bloom as Legolas.
Hopefully, Peter Jackson can recreate the glory and success that he achieved with the The Lord of the Rings trilogy with The Hobbit films. Tolkien fanatics do not want to be disappointed by their ‘precious’![adrotate group=”8″]
