[Epic Movie] The Hobbit: Part 1 (coming December 2012)

This is a terrible thing to say, but I would be more sad if Ian McKellen were to pass away during filming instead of Chris Lee because Gandalf is my favorite character and crucial to the movie versus Saruman.

 

Yeah, he played this elf though I wouldn't have known since they look very different.

 

It's fascinating how different it is this time waiting for the Hobbit using Facebook, Twitter, and Google when in 1999 I only had Netscape and some strange Geocities pages.

Surprisingly, PJ has been quite involved in updating his Facebook page with frequent and detailed updates. For a director working on such a gargantuan project, it's great to see him or his PR team taking the time to do this.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-jackson/easter-break/10150231377401558

Update 1 "Just arrived at our four-day Easter break, which will be a nice time to recharge batteries and do a few script tweaks for future scenes.

We always find there are three distinct phases in the life of a film script. First, it exists before the film starts shooting. In this period, which can last from months to years, the script is a theoretical document—an imaginative version of the movie.

Then you start shooting and things come much more into focus—usually in a very positive way. We now have actors who bring their skill to the roles and suddenly we see the characters in a more vivid and tangible way. This is both fun and satisfying, and always inspires us to embark on constant script revisions to meet the renewed potential these characters now have. I feel that much of the best writing happens during this period, but it does make a very busy time—very, very busy! Sometimes we have gotten these revisions to the actors a little late. We constantly joke to Ian McKellen that tomorrow's script pages will be slid under his door sometime the night before... and sometimes that has been true.

The worst case of this came during The Fellowship of the Ring, when we revised Boromir's long speech about Mordor at the last minute and only got it to Sean Bean on the day it was being shot. Sean handled it very cleverly—if you look at the movie, you'll see he occasionally has his head bowed, as if dealing with the emotional weight of the horrors of Mordor. In actual fact, the new script page had been taped to his knee! By the time we were done with several takes and a few different camera angles, Sean had the speech down pat, and it was mainly those takes that were used in the final cut.

The final writing phase comes in post-production, when you edit the movie. No matter what you were imagining when you wrote the script, and what you imagined during the shoot, nothing now matters beyond the actual cut film. We often find that script work continues during post, including writing and shooting new scenes, reorganising the order of scenes, or recording additional dialogue to slip into shots. We do all of these things, and the writing only stops when the film is finally finished.

Many thanks for all the comments about the first posts. A few common questions have come up and I'll answer some of those over the break. Now to get back to the script for those Rivendell scenes we have coming up...

Cheers,

Peter J"

Update 2 "One comment that came up from the recent video blog was the Bilbo voice at the end—many of you assumed it was Sir Ian Holm. Whilst Ian will be returning as the older Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, that recording was actually Martin Freeman's voice, taken from a script read through we recorded when the cast first arrived. I have to admit, I wasn't sure who it was when I first heard it, either. Cheers, Peter J"

 

Actor Lee Pace cast in 'The Hobbit' for role as Elven king, Thranduil.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/05/02/lee-pace-cast-in-the-hobbit-our-hopes-for-his-comeback-grow/

"I'm very pleased to be welcoming two new cast members to our team.

Dean O'Gorman will be playing Fili. Dean's a terrific Kiwi actor, who I am thrilled to be working with. He's recently been in an excellent TV series down here called "The Almighty Johnsons", and I should let fans of that show know that our shooting schedule allows Dean to continue with a second series next year. Dean will be joining us next week.

I'm also pleased to announce that Lee Pace will be playing the Elven King Thranduil. Casting these Tolkien stories is very difficult, especially the Elven characters, and Lee has always been our first choice for Thranduil. He's going to be great. We loved his performance in a movie called "The Fall" a few years ago, and have been hoping to work with him since. When we were first discussing who would be right for Thranduil, Lee came into mind almost immediately.

It's been a great week, and I'm looking forward to the next few. It's going to be interesting...

More soon.

Cheers,
Peter J"