Stephen Colbert Interviews Smaug the Dragon

On Thursday, The Colbert Report had a surprise guest in the form of Smaug the Dragon. Not in a costume or as some voice but Weta actually used their CGI Smaug creation to do an "on stage" interview with Stephen Colbert that was both fantastic to watch and quite hilarious. In part because it seems the voice of Smaug, Benedict Cumberbatch, came to play as he made digs at Colbert, himself, Sherlock and Martin Freeman. The result is fantastic and highly recommend you watch.

Evangeline Lilly Talks Tauriel and the Final Hobbit Film

In an interview with LA Times, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies' Evangeline Lilly discusses her role of Tauriel, what she brought to the role, and some of her favorite moments on the set. Below are a few of the questions but the full interview is at Hero Complex.

Jackson Confirms End of Tolkien Films

Peter Jackson has confirmed that The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will be the last JRR Tolkien adaptation. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were sold by Professor Tolkien in the late ’60s, the film rights,” Jackson explained in a press conference cited by The Independent. “But they are the only two works of his that have been sold. So without the cooperation of the Tolkien estate, there can’t be more films.”

The Tolkien estate has long loved the money the films have brought in but have hated the films themselves for not being slavishly faithful enough to the books (which having read all of them can only think "thank god for that") and really hated the merchandising overkill that followed (can't blame them for that). Tolkien’s son Christopher told the French newspaper Le Monde in 2012, “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed by the absurdity of our time...The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing.” Which of course is nonsense since the books remains untouched and can continue to be enjoyed for generations outside of the movies. Never got why people think one somehow weakens the other.

I suspect that really all the hate is about money. If Warner Bros offered enough money for to adapt the rest of Tolkien's works, the estate would probably agree. However, what remains is really esoteric, detailed Middle-Earth world building that Tolkien fans love but for the average movie goer (most of who have not and will not ever read the books) it would come across as silly and pointless even assuming a reasonable adaptation was possible.

Jackson Talks Final Battle in The Hobbit and Images from Movie

In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly The Hobbit trilogy director Peter Jackson provided a few hints (and images) about the the titles' Battle of Five Armies that will be a 45 minute long finale to the entire trilogy. Below his comments on the logistics of planning the battle and click here to see his over all plan on how the armies merge on the Erebor battlefield. In addition The One Ring has posted 27 images from the movie, those can be found here.

“There’s a lot of logistics that have to be thought through,” says Jackson. “We have dwarves and men and elves and orcs, all with different cultures, with different weapons, and different shields and patterns and tactics.”

“Before we could loose the first arrow, we had to design the landscape itself and figure out, ‘Okay, if we have 10,000 orcs, how much room are they going to take up?’?” Jackson says. “?‘Are they going to fill up the valley or look like a speck?’ Then we could start drawing the arrows on the schematics.”

“Tolkien uses eagles in a way that can be kind of awkward because they tend to show up out of the blue and change things pretty quickly,” says the director. “So here they’re just part of the plan, not the saviors. I mean, I do realize that if the eagles had just been able to bring Frodo to Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings and let him drop the ring in, those movies would have been much shorter.”

SDCC: Peter Jackson Interview On Beginning of His Middle-Earth Journey

In an interview with Deadline during Comic-Con, Peter Jackson discussed The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies from the very beginning of it all about 18 or so years ago all the way to the present with a tidbit that the extended edition of Desolation of Smaug will have 25 minutes of added footage. Below are key highlights but I recommend reading the entire interview including how Jackson got to walk the convention floor dressed as an evil jester.

DEADLINE: Six movies and almost two decades later, here we are at the end. James Cameron seems ready to play in the Avatar sandbox forever, and he can because he created it. You brought to life JRR Tolkien’s creation. It’s his, but haven’t you earned the right to stake your own creative residence claim, and keep telling stories from Middle Earth, even original stories? It’s a world many people will be sad to see you leave.
JACKSON: I don’t think that legally we’ve earned that right. Because of Tolkien’s rights, that is unfortunately an impossibility. The reality today is, the professor JRR Tolkien sold the rights to both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings when he was an old man in his late 60s. They both went to UA. This was after The Beatles went after them…

Phillippa Boyen Teases The Hobbit: There and Back Again

In an interview with Empire Magazine Philippa Boyens, one of the writers for The Hobbit trilogy, teases a bit about events in final film The Hobbit: There and Back Again. Not much is revealed, especially for anyone that has read the novel.

“I can legitimately say right now that the third film doesn’t exist,” [Philippa Boyens] stressed before the questions started rolling in. “Pete’s cutting it. As an entity, it’s coming together. Actually that’s not true - we have a rough assembly, so to speak, of the shape of the film and the performances. I am excited, because one of the storylines I care a lot about is the Thorin one."

“Richard Armitage is extraordinary, as Thorin descends into madness,” she said of The Hobbit: There And Back Again’s dwarfish denouement.

Asked about the reasons for that Lake-town cliffhanger, Boyens explained that as a “natural break” in the story it was “the most obvious place to end the second film”. She added: “It felt so natural that I got a shock when the audience got a shock! If you can imagine what transpires next and what’s coming, it’s quite a huge chunk of storytelling. Not only that, but you enter into the tone of the third film, which is very definitely - as is the book, by the way - moving towards the world of Middle-earth as it becomes in Lord Of The Rings. Some dark stuff goes on.”

And what of the dwarves' decision to make that most elementary of movie errors: splitting up? “We made that decision [so we would] experience the attack on Lake-town through the eyes of people we've come a long way with,” she said. “We wanted some of the dwarves to understand what happened in that firestorm, that holocaust that rains down upon Lake-town. Bofur (James Nesbitt) comes more into his own in the third film. A rift begins to open up. And I can’t say much more without going into spoilers for film three, but it’s primarily because we needed him to be there when the dragon attacks."

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.

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

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.

Evangeline Lilly Talks More About Tauriel

Last week The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug held a fan event that Evangeline Lilly participated in. After the "live" portion, she stuck around and fielded additional questions from Entertainment Weekly and fans. A few interesting tidbits came out from the session including the background of the character (parents killed by Orcs), that she read The Silmarillion (no easy task as harsh read), and more. The video can be found here.

The Hobbit: On Set Interview with Evangeline Lilly

In their second of a series of on the set of The Hobbit, The One Ring sat down with Evangeline Lilly to discuss how she was cast in the role of Tauriel, her concerns on taking the role, her love of Tolkien and more. I think the interview is around summer 2012 for context. The highlights are below, for the full interview: Part 1 | Part 2.

Evangeline Lilly, Peter Jackson and Others Talk The Desolation of Smaug (Updated)

Not sure why but more than the usual number of sites posted their interviews with mostly Evangeline Lilly but also with few other actors from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Also have a few set reports. Usually this far away from release its one site posting something and the rest then posting about that first post. The timing is weird to me because usually this is the kind of thing you start seeing around two weeks before a movie opens, not two months. It might be worth reading as these questions will eventually be asked hundreds of times by reporters so for now the answers are less sales pitchy, longer and more spontaneous until the repetition results in the short and concise answers normally see.

Evangeline Lilly's interviews are probably the most interesting as she is clearly very enthusiastic about the role of Tauriel and is glad to be able to finally talk about it. I am starting to suspect she is a bit of a closet geek. The One Ring's set visit is also of interest as the writer was an extra on the New Zealand so provides his view of the experience. Worth while as written by a fan living a dream trying to report the experience rather then as a reporter who really isn't a fan and doesn't really care about the subject they cover (like most entertainment reporters). Links below.

Update: Added links to Dark Horizon's interviews with Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman.

Set Visit (The One Ring) - Set extra and fan discussing his experience on the set. Part of 1 of future unknown number.

Evangeline Lilly and Orlando Bloom (io9) - Discuss adding these characters to the story since are not in the book, in Bloom's case returning to the role and more.

Evangeline Lilly (Collider) - Seems Lilly tired of her gorgeous long hair and chopped it. Also talks at length about Tauriel, what the character brings to the story, and how different from other elves.

Evangeline Lilly (Dark Horizons) - Discusses casting, costume, adding a female to movie, elven ears, and filming.

Peter Jackson (HitFix) - The director talks 48FPS, using some of Guillermo del Toro's vision for the film, and more.

Luke Evans (Dark Horizons) - Discusses being cast, scale of the shoot, green screen work and more.

Set Visit (Yahoo) - 10 brief (and mostly meh) factoids from a set visit.

Ian McKellen (Dark Horizons) - He discusses differences in experience of shooting LOTRs vs Hobbit trilogies, green screen and more. A lot of it is a retread of questions he answered for Journey.

Martin Freeman (Dark Horizons) - Bilbo discusses pace differences between the two Hobbit films, demands of filing a trilogy, and not really filming with his Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch who voices Smaug the Dragon.

Evangeline Lilly Video Interview

Below is a short video interview with Evangeline Lilly for What's Trending as she comments on her The Hobbit role of Tauriel and the fan reaction trailer video. She looks fantastic but got to admit I much prefer her longer, straighter hairstyle look.

Jackson, Boyens Teases The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition Additions

In an interview with Empire Magazine, director Peter Jackson and his co-writer Phillippa Boyens teased some of the additional scenes that have been added to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition that is expected this holiday season. The August issue of Empire with more about The Desolation of Smaug hits newsstands on Thursday.

"You are going to get some serious Dwarvish disrespect of the elves at Rivendell," says Jackson, echoing what he previously said to us during our Unexpected Journey video interviews (see below).

"You are going to get more of Hobbiton," says producer / co-writer Philippa Boyens. "We always wanted to wend our way through Hobbiton, but in the end Bilbo has to run out of the door."

"You are going to get more Goblin Town, and the Great Goblin singing his song," adds Fran Walsh, Jackson's other half and fellow screenwriter. "It is a great song, but it was just another delay in terms of moving the story along."

"A number one hit from the Goblin King," laughs Jackson. "Barry Humphries is going to rise up the charts."

"We are putting things in the extended cut that are going to play straight into the second film," explains Jackson, "like this character Girion, who is defending [the city of] Dale using black arrows against Smaug. And the black arrows play a part in an ongoing story, for they are the one thing that can pierce the dragon's hide."

"There are also issues with [king of the elves] Thranduil (Lee Pace)," Jackson adds. "We get some of the reason why he and the dwarves had a falling out - to do with these white gems..."

Manu Bennett Talks About Playing Azog

While he missed out on joining the promotional swing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Manu Bennett has not been forgotten by Empire Magazine. The actor, most famous for his role as Crixus in Spartacus and Slade Wilson in Arrow, is also the voice and body of Azog, the large white orc arch nemesis of Thorin. The actor himself does not appear but instead was the motion captured on stage and inserted into the film, after initial filming had wrapped. Jackson had decided the previous actor wasn't quite working and replaced him Bennett which required going on a green screen and re-creating the role. It seems Peter enjoyed the performance enough that Azog is going to get a lot more screen time in the next two films with Bennett expected to report to work when filming begins again this summer to get the extra footage needed to complete the trilogy. In the meantime, below are highlights of a great interview with the actor or you can read the whole thing at Empire.

Highlights

Freeman Interview For The Hobbit Home Video Release

Today The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is out on Blu-ray and DVD.  As part of that Collider has released a video interview (below) with star Martin Freeman as he discussed the movie.  The 10 minute interview is pretty entertaining, if only to try and figure out the very dry British humor that sometimes makes it difficult to tell when he is being literal or not.

Highlights:
- Seen movie 6 times, five times in 48fps but not in IMAX
- Thought first day was "exciting".  Has rehearsed the Riddles in the Dark (Bilbo meets Gollum) before filming it on that first day.
- Felt he was the guy for Bilbo (and most LOTR fans had agreed as name came up long before The Hobbit has even started pre-production)

Freeman: Filming Restarts in May

Since the decision was made to turn The Hobbit into a trilogy was made after initial principle photography has been completed, there is now more to film. According to Martin Freeman it seems the cast will assemble in New Zealand starting in May. No specifics provided on exactly what is being filmed but safe to assume that it will probably involve at least a few scenes for The Desolation of Smaug and lion share probably for There and Back Again. From Hollywood.com:

"I am going back at the end of May for all of June and July. I suppose the thing is, this is not finished. We literally have to go and finish it. It's not a new adventure like on a television show. It's the same story. It's the same gig I started in January 2011. I think it'll be really fun because the crew is quite close and the cast are close and we like working on it. I'm anticipating it."

Philippa Boyens On Choices Made for The Hobbit Script

Philippa Boyens, the lovely co-writer of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. spoke with Collider about some of the various choices that were made in taking the children's book The Hobbit and converting it for the big screen. Below are few of her comments or can read the entire interview here.

...I think one of the most incredible moments to happen in the Tolkien canon happens in that little story when Bilbo doesn’t kill Gollum. And as Gandalf goes on to point out, the pity of Bilbo ruled the fate of many. It is an extraordinary moment and I think it’s extraordinarily played by Martin Freeman. I think the notion that the seeds of impending doom exist within the film. But you are putting your finger on something that is really important, and it’s something that as writers we knew going in, which is how to tackle this story, which was written as a childrens story. Now that it’s set against the greatest trilogy, which came first. I’m pretty sure that if we hadn’t done the Lord of the Rings first this would be a very different film.

Peter Jackson's Hobbit Cameo and the Movie

It turns out that unlike in the Lord of the Rings where Peter Jackson's cameo had to be left until the extended edition of Return of the King, this time The Hobbit trilogy director was able to get his appearance in. According to Empire, he plays a dwarf and might spot him if look very carefully.

If you haven't seen it already, it's probably best if you don't know – but if you have seen the first Hobbit movie already, here's where he was hiding: in Erebor, dressed up as a dwarf, high-tailing it away from Smaug as the wicked wyrm blasted his particular brand of fiery halitosis all upside The Lonely Mountain.

Martin Freeman On Filming Riddles in The Dark

In an interview with i09.com, Martin Freeman discusses filming the "Riddles in the Dark" scene that first introduced Gollum and his discovered of a gold ring. Highlights below, full interview here.

How did Peter Jackson direct you to handle the ring?
Martin Freeman: With curiosity, I think. That was what we kind of went for. When I first see it, when it drops out of Gollum's pouch in the goblin tunnels, to just literally notice it and go "oh." It's just a flash of color in this dark place. A flash of gold. And as I get closer just to have curiosity and not to imbue it with a great kind of force or a sense of epic-ness. Like a trinket. Then there's something magpie-ish about Bilbo and he thinks, oh I'll have that that might come in handy. But there's no sense of a semi religious import.