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Filming For The Hobbit Begins In July
krou writes "Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that filming for The Hobbit and its sequel is scheduled to begin in July, and will take approximately a year to complete. Casting is now 'taking place in LA, London and New York,' and [director Guillermo] Del Toro is already 'living in Wellington, close to the Jacksons and the studio in Miramar.' Apparently the script is still being worked on, and 'the first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle-earth.' The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings."
I commented on the post in the Firehose after I submitted it, but the summary should've said "... is scheduled to begin in July ..." instead of June.
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'The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an *original story not written by Tolkien*'
Pretty much like most of Jackson's version of 'The Two Towers', then!
Actually, I wonder how accurate the BBC story is. Jackson and del toro have suggested elsewhere that they intend to spread out the story of 'The Hobbit' over both films, supplemented by material about (e.g.) Gandalf and Dol Guldur:
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/hobbitfaq/#1.1
Since details of events outside Bilbo's direct experience are sketchy (LOTR appendices, 'Unfinished Tales', etc.), they'll have to invent quite a lot to fill in the gaps (especially if they intend to include Aragorn's early adventures).
Actually TFA is wrong on that account. That was the original plan.
More recently they decided make a 2 part Hobbit film instead by filling in the gaps not mentioned in the book. Like e.g. what Gandalf was doing while he was gone etc.
Can't find where I originally read this but it's on wikipedia too.
Sounds like the filler episodes in anime, when they've already make all the current manga into anime, but want to make more anime something anyway. And we all know how great those are.
For those of you not familiar with anime, that last part was sarcasm. Filler episodes are utterly craptastic. In that case, because the story continues on as if nothing significant happened in the time the filler is showing, any plot or character development has to be disposable. Nothing happens.
Same thing here. What could happen in the sequel to the hobbit? Spoiler: none of the characters that are in lord of the rings will die in the prequel, wheras any characters they introduce will die before the events in lord of the rings or will have to come up with some reason they're insignificant for lord of the rings.
I think the news article is wrong/has outdated information. See http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41848
Also, Galadriel isn't the same kind of elf as the ones in The Hobbit, if I remember correctly. They are the elves who remained in Middle-Earth instead of going to Valinor, Galadriel is part of the gang that went to Valinor and came back to Middle-Earth later.
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From theonering.net
1.2. What will be included in the two movies? According to the Empire Online interview with PJ and GDT (link above), the two movies will include all of the iconic moments in the book, The Hobbit, as well as being expanded to follow other events that occur ‘offstage.’ This includes the White Council and Gandalf’s comings and goings to Dol Guldur. Pj: “We expanded out the universe a lot more so that we weren’t just staying with Bilbo and the Dwarves on their journey, as the book pretty much does. We started to expand some of what’s happening to Gandalf outside of that journey.” Things we know are included so far: - backstory of Thrain, Thorin’s father - Beorn - Spiders - The White Council - Gandalf’s journeys to Dol Guldur - The three trolls (Tom, Bert, William) - Sauron ( including some of his history)
Well, Gandalf spent a lot of time doing stuff in those years. The Hobbit even has him mentioning that he needs to do something about the Necromancer (where he rescued Thorin's father and got the map to the entrance of Lonely Mountain). Meanwhile Sauron has gone from being semi-hidden to moving to Moria and rebuilding his armies. There are councils of the wise where Saruman pretends to be a good guy. There is the search for Gollum (which is also an online fan made movie). There is Aragorn growing up and meeting Arwen and his struggle with Dunedain puberty. Gloin manages to find and recognize a female dwarf and begets an Gimli. Thranduil lectures his son Legolas about not becoming too friendly with the dwarves and their kind. Frodo as a child spends a summer at Brandybuck Hall where the spoiled Pippin and Merry get him into trouble stealing mushrooms while Sam keeps whining that they'll get caught. The nazgul figure out that if they wear robes that they can see each other and be seen, which is the turning point in getting taken seriously by the orcs. And there is something in the appendices about pod races I think.