News Archive

Digitspy.co.uk report that the previous director of The Hobbit, Guillermo del Toro, has backed Peter Jackson’s casting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo.

In this interview at Sky News Andy Serkis states that he believes that at the end of the day The Hobbit will be filmed in New Zealand.

There are also photos at Sky News of the rallies, to support keeping filming of The Hobbit in New Zealand, that took place in Queenstown, Auckland and Wellington.

Thousands of New Zealanders have rallied to protest against filming of The Hobbit movies being moved outside their country. Richard Taylor (from WETA) spoke at the rally in Wellington and stated “The alternative is just too bleak to consider. “. You can read more at bbc.co.uk and also watch a video summarizing the problems besetting the movies.

You can see footage of one of the rallies at Sky News.

John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, believes that there is a 50-50 chance that filming of The Hobbit will take place in new Zealand. In the next two days Mr Key will be meeting with Warner Brothers executives to try to persuade them not to move filming outside New Zealand. Mr Key stated; “Unfortunately the actions of the unions have forced Warner Brothers to go and look at other locations and that could be to New Zealand’s detriment.” You can read the full story here.

You can watch a video here which deals with what it will mean to the people of Matamata (Hobbiton in the LotR movies) if filming moves outside New Zealand.

Those of you that are currently logged in to the site are probably noticing something new at the bottom of the screen — this is the new CoE chatbar! It allows you to instantly chat with your friends, and has a lot of other cool features. Please click around and check it out, and if you have any questions, post them in the forum.

G4tv.com has a round-up of all The Hobbit roles which have been confirmed to have been cast. Details include pictures, quotes from Peter Jackson and brief bios.

Sylvester McCoy has revealed that he has been cast as Radagast the Brown in the forthcoming movies of The Hobbit. However, although he has won the role he has yet to sign contracts for it. You can read more here.

Stuff.co.uk report that thousands of New Zealanders will rally today to try to keep filming of The Hobbit in their country. Executives from Warner Brothers are expected to arrive shortly to meet with Peter Jackson to make a final decision on where the movies will be filmed.

Stuff.co.nz report that a fall in the New Zealand dollar can be partly attributed to the threat of losing the $500 million production of The Hobbit.

Warner Bros has confirmed that it is considering filming The Hobbit movies offshore due to the recent labor unrest. As of now it seems that the unions, PJ and the government are all now working towards convincing the studio to keep the movies in New Zealand

You can read the full story at stuff.co.nz.