THE HOBBIT: Die Produktion hat wirklich begonnen

… und des­we­gen gibt es nicht­nur eine of­fi­zi­elle Pres­se­mel­dung dazu, son­dern auch ein Foto von Pe­ter Jack­son in Bag End. Plus: Jack­son (oder Ghost­wri­ter) be­rich­tet auf sei­ner neu ein­ge­rich­te­ten Facebook-Seite von den Dreh­ar­bei­ten und es gibt ein of­fi­zi­el­les Produktions-Blog!

Bild Co­py­right War­ner Bros.

Die voll­stän­dige Pres­se­mel­dung im kom­plet­ten Ar­ti­kel.

PRO­DUC­TION BEGINS IN NEW ZE­A­LAND ON THE HOB­BIT, PE­TER JACKSON’S TWO FILM EPIC AD­APTA­TION OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S TIM­E­L­ESS CLAS­SIC

In a hole in the ground there li­ved a Hob­bit…

Wel­ling­ton, NZ, March 21, 2011—Production has com­menced in Wel­ling­ton, New Ze­a­land, on “The Hob­bit,” filmma­ker Pe­ter Jackson’s two film ad­apta­tion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s wi­dely read mas­ter­piece.

“The Hob­bit” is set in Middle-earth 60 years be­fore Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” which Jack­son and his filmma­king team brought to the big screen in the block­bus­ter tri­logy that cul­mi­na­ted with the Oscar-winning “The Lord of the Rings: The Re­turn of the King.”

The two films, with screen­plays by Fran Walsh, Phil­ippa Boy­ens, Guil­lermo del Toro and Pe­ter Jack­son, will be shot con­se­cu­tively in di­gi­tal 3D using the la­test ca­mera and ste­reo tech­no­logy.  Filming will take place at Stone Street Stu­dios, Wel­ling­ton, and on lo­ca­tion around New Ze­a­land.

“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.

Mar­tin Free­man ta­kes the title role as Bilbo Baggins and Ian McKel­len re­turns in the role of Gan­dalf the Grey.   The Dwar­ves are played by Ri­chard Ar­mi­tage (Tho­rin Oa­kens­hield), Ken Stott (Ba­lin), Gra­ham Mc­Ta­vish (Dwalin), Wil­liam Kir­cher (Bi­fur) Ja­mes Nes­bitt (Bo­fur), Ste­phen Hun­ter (Bom­bur), Rob Ka­zinsky (Fili), Ai­dan Tur­ner (Kili), Pe­ter Ham­ble­ton (Gloin), John Cal­len (Oin), Jed Bro­phy (Nori), Mark Had­low (Dori) and Adam Brown (Ori).  Re­pri­sing their ro­les from “The Lord of the Rings” tri­logy are Cate Blan­chett as Gal­adriel, Andy Ser­kis as Gollum and Eli­jah Wood as Frodo.  Jef­frey Tho­mas and Mike Miz­rahi also join the cast as Dwarf Kings Thror and Thrain, re­spec­tively. Fur­ther cas­ting an­noun­ce­ments are ex­pec­ted.

“The Hob­bit” is pro­du­ced by Pe­ter Jack­son and Fran Walsh, alongs­ide Ca­ro­lynne Cun­ningham.  Exe­cu­tive pro­du­cers are Ken Ka­mins and Zane Wei­ner, with Phil­ippa Boy­ens as co-producer.  The Oscar-winning, cri­ti­cally ac­clai­med “The Lord of the Rings” tri­logy, also from the pro­duc­tion team of Jack­son and Walsh, grossed nearly $3 bil­lion world­wide at the box of­fice. In 2003, “The Re­turn of the King” swept the Aca­demy Awards, win­ning all of the 11 ca­te­go­ries in which it was no­mi­na­ted, in­clu­ding Best Pic­ture – the first ever Best Pic­ture win for a fan­tasy film. The trilogy’s pro­duc­tion was also un­pre­ce­den­ted at the time.

Among the crea­tive behind-the-scenes team re­turning to Jackson’s crew are di­rec­tor of pho­to­gra­phy An­d­rew Les­nie, pro­duc­tion de­si­gner Dan Hen­nah, con­cep­tual de­si­gners Alan Lee and John Howe, com­po­ser Howard Shore and make-up and hair de­si­gner Pe­ter King.  Cos­tu­mes are de­si­gned by Ann Mas­krey and Ri­chard Tay­lor.

Tay­lor is also over­see­ing the de­sign and pro­duc­tion of wea­ponry, ar­mour and prost­he­tics which are once again being made by the award win­ning Weta Work­shop.  Weta Di­gi­tal take on the vi­sual ef­fects for both films, led by the film’s vi­sual ef­fects su­per­vi­sor, Joe Let­teri.   Post pro­duc­tion will take place at Park Road Post Pro­duc­tion in Wel­ling­ton.

“The Hob­bit” films are co-produced by New Line Ci­nema and MGM, with New Line ma­na­ging pro­duc­tion.  War­ner Bros Pic­tures is hand­ling world­wide thea­tri­cal dis­tri­bu­tion, with select in­ter­na­tio­nal ter­ri­to­ries as well as all in­ter­na­tio­nal te­le­vi­sion li­cen­sing being hand­led by MGM.  The two films are plan­ned for re­lease in late 2012 and 2013, re­spec­tively.

ABOUT NEW LINE CI­NEMA:

New Line Ci­nema con­ti­nues to be one of the most suc­cess­ful in­de­pen­dent film com­pa­nies.  For more than 40 years, its mis­sion has been to pro­duce in­no­va­tive, po­pu­lar, pro­fi­ta­ble en­ter­tain­ment in the best crea­tive en­viron­ment.  A pioneer in fran­chise filmma­king, New Line pro­du­ced the Oscar®-winning “The Lord of the Rings” tri­logy, which is a land­mark in the history of film fran­chi­ses.  New Line Ci­nema is a di­vi­sion of War­ner Bros.

ABOUT PE­TER JACKSON/WINGNUT FILMS:

Pe­ter Jack­son is one of the world’s most suc­cess­ful filmma­kers.  His mo­nu­men­tal achie­ve­ment co-writing, co-producing and di­rec­ting The Lord of the Rings tri­logy (with fel­low Aca­demy Award win­ners and fre­quent col­la­bo­ra­tors Fran Walsh and Phil­ippa Boy­ens) ear­ned a to­tal of 30 Aca­demy Award no­mi­na­ti­ons and 17 Aca­demy Awards.  Jack­son and Walsh re­cei­ved their first Os­car no­mi­na­tion for Best Ori­gi­nal Screen­play for their ac­clai­med film Hea­venly Crea­tures.  Jack­son, through his New Zealand-based Wing­nut Films ban­ner, also was re­sponsi­ble for the glo­bally suc­cess­ful 2005 re­make of King Kong which ear­ned over $500 mil­lion world­wide and 3 Aca­demy Awards.  Jack­son most re­cently di­rec­ted the Aca­demy Award no­mi­na­ted The Lovely Bo­nes; an ad­apta­tion of the ac­clai­med best-selling no­vel by Alice Se­bold, which to date has ear­ned nearly $100 mil­lion world­wide; and pro­du­ced the glo­bal sen­sa­tion, District 9, which re­cei­ved an Aca­demy Award no­mi­na­tion for Best Pic­ture.  He is also de­ve­lo­ping a tri­logy of films with Ste­ven Spiel­berg ba­sed on Tin­tin, the world re­now­ned co­mic book se­ries by Herge.  In 2010 he re­cei­ved a Knighthood for his ser­vices to film.

ABOUT METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STU­DIOS INC.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Stu­dios Inc. is ac­tively en­ga­ged in the world­wide pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion of mo­tion pic­tures, te­le­vi­sion pro­gramming, home vi­deo, in­ter­ac­tive me­dia, mu­sic, and li­cen­sed mer­chan­dise. The com­pany owns the world’s lar­gest li­brary of mo­dern films, com­pri­sing around 4,100 tit­les. Ope­ra­ting units in­clude Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Stu­dios Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pic­tures Inc., United Ar­tists Films Inc., MGM Te­le­vi­sion En­ter­tain­ment Inc., MGM Net­works Inc., MGM Dis­tri­bu­tion Co., MGM In­ter­na­tio­nal Te­le­vi­sion Dis­tri­bu­tion Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home En­ter­tain­ment LLC, MGM ON STAGE, MGM Mu­sic, MGM Con­su­mer Pro­ducts and MGM In­ter­ac­tive. In ad­di­tion, MGM has ow­nership in­te­rests in do­mestic and in­ter­na­tio­nal TV chan­nels re­aching over 130 coun­tries. For more in­for­ma­tion, vi­sit www.mgm.com.

–wbp–

For more in­for­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Ste­pha­nie Phil­lips, War­ner Bros. Pic­tures
(818) 954‑2351
Stephanie.Phillips@warnerbros.com

Ke­vin Frank, War­ner Bros. Pic­tures In­ter­na­tio­nal
(818) 954‑7180
Kevin.Frank@warnerbros.com