The Hobbit Box Office Update

Despite a bunch of new releases, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug remains on top of the box office for the third week in a row. Practically unheard of nowadays. The movie has benefited from the good reviews and word of mouth. Probably didn't hurt that all the other films released in December has been more for Oscar bait then big budget action fair as the studios released all those during the crowded summer. Since they are using the same game plan in 2014, the final Hobbit film will likely enjoy the same lack of meaningful competition.

Any case for this final weekend of 2013, The Hobbit took in $29.8 million for a US total of $190.3 million. Add in the foreign gross of $614 million for a worldwide total of $614.1 million. It is assumed the movie will just barely cross the $1 billion threshold joining its brother The Unexpected Journey in that rare list of movies.

The Hobbit Concept Art

Andrew Baker, one of the concept artists for The Hobbit trilogy, has posted some of his creature concepts on his blog. These include a look at Smaug, Bolg, Beorn and more. Click here to view them all.

The Hobbit Production Video #14 - The Music

In time for Christmas, Peter Jackson has posted the 14th production video for The Hobbit trilogy and last for this year. The remainder will start sometime in the new year with the focus being on filming The Hobbit: There and Back Again. In the video below, it focuses entirely on creating the beautiful soundtrack for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug as composed by Howard Shore.

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Everything Wrong with The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

To mark the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Cinema Sins has released their take on The Lord of the Rings trilogy as part of their "Everything Wrong with..." series. As usual it is an amusing take on a movie's flaws, which all will have no matter how carefully try to avoid them.

McKellen Greets Hobbit Fans for Midnight Showing

The Hobbit fans in New York got a little extra treat when Ian McKellen (Gandalf) showed up to speak briefly with all the midnight movie goers who were about to see the film. At point this week I need to write a formal review but basically the movie was superior to the first and highly recommend seeing it. (via io9)

New Poster, 3D Featurette for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Just cause The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is out doesn't mean the posters stop. The latest features the massive Dwarf treasure as Smaug does his Scrooge McDuck impression. In addition below is a brief behind the scenes featurette with the cast and Peter Jackson as they discuss the 3D quality of the film.

Smaug Opens Strong in First Weekend of Release

The Desolation of Smaug's opening weekend US take of $73.65 million fell short of landing the December opening record set by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($84.6M) but I doubt Jackson and company care considering the film took in $205M worldwide essentially paying for itself in the first three days of release. The assumption is the movie will cross the $1 billion threshold and considering the overall good reviews, I see little reason to doubt it. More details on the breakdown here but basically the movie did as well as it was expected to do.

Lego The Hobbit Video Game Trailer

After the (probable) success of Lego The Lord of the Rings video game, the one for The Hobbit is prepping for release. Below is the first trailer for the upcoming game. Most of the footage focuses on events from the first movie with a second tease of Lego Tauriel. Currently there is no release date but the title suggests that it covers the entire The Hobbit trilogy so probably around Christmas 2014 so as to avoid spoiling The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

New Desolation of Smaug TV Spot, Evangeline Lilly Interview, Smaug Clip and VFX Challenges

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is out now (as TV spot below reminds us) and already it has enjoyed a great first day with $8.8 million take for the midnight shows in the US. The current estimate is the movie is on track for a record $80 million weekend but no idea what the worldwide take will be.

The cast continues to make the talk show rounds (next 2 videos below). Evangeline Lilly appeared on The Daily Show to discuss the movie with Jon Stewart, teasing him about his complete lack of knowledge of the film while Benedict Cumberbatch popped up on Conan O'Brien. The interview itself was ok but the main but was the first real clip with Smaug. Its very brief as a portion of it was padded with stuff already shown in the trailers.

Over at THR, Weta's Joe Letteri discussed the challenges they faced creating the scenes with Smaug. Part of the problem was the impressive size as Smaug ("twice as big as a 747") with unique antomy that had to be taken in account when creating him in the computer. While you don't see it, they actually create a digital being complete with skeletal structure and muscles to help create a look of realistic movement. Since he has wings and other fantasy elements, that required often hand done animation to achieve the final effects. As to that the gold pile, "We had to simulate all the gold coins, every time he moved. Sometimes it was a little, sometimes it was a lot, but it ended up being over a billion gold coins. During some of the action sequences, threre were hundreds of millions of coins moving at once." Another difficulty was the barrel scene that often had to be completely re-created in the computer from the water, to the actors or replacing them digitally. More details here.

Media Review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The reviews are already in for most of main media for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Over all most seem to enjoy the movie, grading it around a B+ saying it moves at a much more exciting pace compared to An Unexpected Journey. Another common note is the action scenes are very well done and exciting but frequently compared to video games. As for the new characters Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel was complemented as a great addition to the cast and the story, Legolas is a shot of fun to the movie, while Bard the Bowman landed with a mild thud. Smaug himself was more on fence with many critics thinking he was visually stunning but a bit one note as a villain. A few highlights below.

Entertainment Weekly (A+)

The Desolation of Smaug is a more grandly somber movie, and also a much better one, with forces of boldly intense and unified malevolence. ...This time Jackson nails that tone: the feeling that Bilbo, who's been recruited to steal back a wondrous gem called the Arkenstone from the dragon Smaug, is up against a cosmic storm of black forces. The dragon has ravaged the land, the angry, hulking orcs are on a power trip, and the elves — led by the imperious Thranduil (Lee Pace) — are isolationists who trap the dwarves in a dungeon, setting up a great escape via wine barrels on white rapids. ...Yet Jackson's direction is spiky and majestic, and the risky move of inventing his own Tolkien character — the elf guard Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) — as a love interest for Legolas (Orlando Bloom) pays off. These two bring some badly needed heat to the woodlands. Speaking of heat, the dragon is, quite simply, a marvel: gargantuan yet balletic, hoarding his mountain of gold with a razor-toothed smile, breathing not just flame but an inferno, and voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch with the most delicious, insidious knowledge.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Released

Today is the official release date of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. To mark the day, yet a new poster. Feel free to post what you thought of the movie in the comments.

Awesome 200,000 Lego Rivendell Diorama

The large example of awesome below is The Lord of the Ring's Rivendell built from 200,000 Lego as created by Alice Finch and David Frank. The duo is familiar with epic from last year's 400,000 Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts creation. The creation was made by screenshots from TLOTR trilogy, making of books and sketches of the model built for the film including a Weta model that provided the overall layout. The large diorama re-creates various moments from the movie such as the river washing away the Ringwraiths, Fellowship meeting, and more. It even has its own lighting effects. An interview with the creators along with more pictures can be found at Brothers-Brick.

"I See Fire" TV Spot and Capella Clone Cover

The credit song for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is the great single "I See Fire" performed by Ed Sheeran. The song is used in the latest UK TV spot for movie. In addition Peter Hollens does creative editing to create a capella cover of the track using himself times 1 to 13 depending on section.

Interviews with Armitage, Boyens, Turner and O'Gorman

Tonight The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug premieres with midnight showings in the US (and assume elsewhere). The interviews continue, this time with Richard Armitage who discusses the "Shakesperean" path Thorin Oakenshield takes. Trilogy writer Philippa Boyens talks about the inclusion of the new female character Tauriel and casting of Evangeline Lilly for the role. Finally Aiden Turner (Kili) and Dean O'Gorman (Fili) discuss filming the movie via a video interview. Hit the links for the details.

Links: Armitage | Boyens | Turner and O'Gorman

Jackson Interview, 60 Movie Images and Berlin Smaug Premiere Video

Just a few more days until The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug premieres worldwide. Peter Jackson spoke with Collider about making the movie. Highlights below, full interview here. In addition the site has posted 60 stills from the movie, some of which are new but many previously released. But if to review them, can find them here. Last, the Berlin, Germany premiere of the movie was held last night. Below is WB's highlight reel from the event.

Highlights
- "Do we take a children’s book, a very simplistic children’s book, and faithfully adapt it? Or do we make a film that will live alongside the other three movies that we made? We are the same storytellers, Philippa, Fran and I, we’re the same people working on it. We’re trying to be faithful to the style and the tone."
- Why add Tauriel? "For some reason that I don’t quite understand, a lot of women love these stories more than other types of fantasy,” Jackson said. “We just felt it was a bit male-heavy and we could do something about it."
- “The great thing about the movies is that they have increased the book sales enormously,” Jackson said. “Huge numbers of people are reading Tolkien now, and I’m happy to claim some credit for that. Any of the liberties that we take in adapting, any of the changes we make, any of the things that might have upset Professor Tolkien … it’s not all take. We do give something back.”

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug TV Spot #10

We are just days away from the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to theaters. Here is the next TV spot for the movie.

Cumberbatch Discusses Doing Smaug and the Necromancer

The main bad guy of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is the dragan itself as played by Benedict Cumberbatch. However, he also has another role in the movie, as the Necromancer, who is kind of a pre-formed version of Sauron. In the interview below with HitFix, the actor discusses the challenge of mo-capping and voicing the two roles.

Lego Erebor from The Hobbit

In a fitting tribute to the upcoming release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a massive 80,000 piece Lego recreation of Erebor as designed and built by Blake Baer and Jack Bittner. The 56" tall diorama is more or less depicts the Dwarf stronghold from before Smaug taking it away and took over 400 hours to complete from concept to final result. Below is a video of the creation, interview with the two master builders is here and full gallery is here.

Lilly Discusses Elvish (and Her Butt) While Cumberbatch Talks Smaug

The talk show circuit continues for the cast of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Currently the most ethusisatic and entertaining of the bunch has been Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel). Lilly stopped by Conan and the two main topics was Elvish (1st video below) and her butt which includes a new clip (2nd video). As for Benedict, the third video below is a straight forward edit of an interview with the actor as he discusses his role as Smaug the Dragon.

Clip #5 From The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The clips from The Hobbit continue as this next one features a scene that shows a little on how the Dwarves ended up in a bunch of barrels as seen in the various trailers.

The Hobbit Production Video #13

The latest production video for The Hobbit Trilogy has been posted. This edition focuses mostly on post-production for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. That includes CGI, sound effects, editing, and using combining a virtual world with filming so that Jackson can "film" a scene in an empty room that mimics his camera movements for the actual home of Smaug. He then teased the next production video that looks into recording the score for the movie.
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Clip #4 From The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

A new clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug joins the previous 3 that have been released to help promote the movie.  Considering the movie is still a week out, I imagine this is just the beginning of more clips and TV spots. This one is a confrontation between Bard the Bowman and Thorin as he tries to drum up support to lay seige on Erebus and drive out Smaug.

Three Clips from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The marketing campaign for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is officially in full swing as the cast starts making the talk show runs around the world. Already in the states Ian McKellen appeared on The Colbert Report while Evangeline Lilly visited Craig Ferguson. Between those visits, EW and IGN, we now have three clips from the movie. The first two will seem familiar as bits were used in the movie's trailers. The first is a scene between Gandalf and Bilbo, the second between Tauriel and Legolas while the last is truly new as an Orc shrugs off the threats from Legolas and Thranduil.

The Hobbit's Tauriel Gets Statue, Stamp and Coin Collectibles

A few new collectibles are currently available for pre-order that focuses on the new character Tauriel. The character, as played by Evangeline Lilly, will first appear in next week's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Weta has created a 1/6 scale statue of the character that will ship by the end of the month for the cost of $275 and limited to a run of 1000. While expensive, it is a pretty piece. The One Ring has a large gallery of the piece here while you can go ahead and pre-order it here.

Besides the statue, New Zealand has also chosen to honor the new character. Much like last year, the NZ Post Office is releasing official coins and stamps depicting Tauriel, Legolas and Bard the Bowman. The items are technically legal tender in New Zealand but no outside the country. Not like it matters as they are meant to be collectibles anyway. You can find all that is available here.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Premiere Video (Updated)

Monday night was the world premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in Los Angeles, California. The video has various hosts interviewing pretty most of the cast of the movie including new additions like Luke Evans along with Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and more. Usually these things are rather dry as the purpose of the red carpet is mostly designed to pitch the movie to the media. Still nice to star gaze, especially when some of the gazing includes the incredible eye candy that is Evangeline Lilly.

Update: If, like me, you really don't have time to watch an hour and half long video, then check out the second video below which is WB's highlight reel from the premiere.

Complete Smaug the Dragon Revealed by Air New Zealand

So far the various TV spots and trailers for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has only revealed small portions of the full CGI creature. For the first time, thanks to a time lapse video from Air New Zealand (below), we now have a look at the complete dragon as he was installed on one of their Boeing 777-300ER. The 177 feet long image, according to Weta Digital Visual Effects Eric Saindon, "Capturing Smaug’s presence and the amazing detail in his design while accommodating the windows, doors and wing shape was quite a different experience for us. It was great to see Smaug brought to life, and he appears even larger in the film!"