Final The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies Trailer Coming November 6

Today via Twitter, WB announced that the final trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies is being released worldwide on November 6th around 1pm ET along with yet another new poster.

Two More Character Posters for The Hobbit 3

Below are the next two character posters for The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies which continue the style of the chose up on a face as they look grimly at something off camera. The posters are for Thorin and Tauriel, joining the posters of Bilbo, Gandalf, Galadriel, and Bard.

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

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.

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.

The Hobbit Cast Interviews and 60 Screenshots

The cast promoting tour for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey continues as the movie is just days away from release. The cast participated in an interview with VH1 & AP, Andy Serkis talks Gollum, Richard Armitage talks with TORn and Hero Complex posts 60 photos from the movie (many repeats). Links, VH1 video and highlights below. If have limited amount of time, the Richard Armitage interview was the least repetitive info wise of this group while VH1 video was most amusing.

Andy Serkis | Armitage I | Armitage II | Cast Interview | VH1 | 60 Images
Highlights

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Set Visit Reports and Factoids

It seems the press moratorium has been lifted on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as several media websites have posted reports on their visit to the set of the movie this past June, along with interviews with Sir Peter Jackson, Sir Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, and Richard Armitage. Based on similiar information popping up in both sites, I think the interviews were done in a conferencing type environment and not one-on-one. Below are links to the reports found so far with a few noteworthy highlights.

Dark Horizons: Set Visit | Peter Jackson | Ian McKellen | Martin Freeman | Richard Armitage
Collider: Set Visit | Peter Jackson | Ian McKellen | Martin Freeman | Richard Armitage | Richard Taylor (VFX)

Highlights:

Del Toro DNA Still Part of The Hobbit, New Thorin Pic

At one point Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy) was set to direct The Hobbit (now trilogy) with Peter Jackson as executive producer. He participated through most of pre-production of the movie but had to leave due to other obligations when it became clear that the film would probably be about a year late in starting due to then MGM's bankruptcy (WB more or less has taken over financing the films). Based on comments from Jackson, that design athestic informed Peter's take but he did make many alternations to fit his vision. Quote below, video here. Also here is a new image of Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield sporting the elvish sword Orcrist aka "Goblin Cleaver" that Bilbo helps find on their adventure. Goblin and Orc mean the same thing in Middle-Earth.

[Guillermo] had designed a lot of the movie . . . I looked at his designs when he took over and a lot of his designs are very Guillermo . . . it was very much stuff that you would recognize from Pan's Labyrinth or Hellboy. It was his artistic vision and I couldn't make that movie. I looked at his designs and I said the only person who can make a Guillermo Del Toro movie is Guillermo. It shouldn't be me. I can't put my head into somebody else's idea — I have to generate it from the beginning. So really I redesigned the film pretty much. Some of Guillermo's DNA is in there — there were some things he did that I thought were pretty cool and I've taken bits of pieces of his stuff — kind of altering it and changing it as I saw it. But the film was largely redesigned.

SDCC 2012: More Cast, Crew Interviews

More cast and crew interviews have been posted online from the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con (1st wave here). In an interesting (but hard to hear) video interview with Richard Armitage as he discussed his role and the Tolkien novels with The One Ring. In addition the SDCC cast and crew spoke with Collider about the movie. Hit the links or watch video and read highlights below.

Highlights
- Peter Jackson: Very early in discussions with studio about shooting more material from the LOTR Appencies to either add to There and Back Again, for extended editions are break into third movie.
- Peter Jackson: Movie tone is in between the darker Lord of the Rings trilogy and the children's amusing tone of The Hobbit.
- Martin Freeman: Became aware of the Hobbit size scale once started filming at Lake Town which is populated by normal sized humans.

SDCC 2012: The Hobbit Panel Video

Below is the full The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey panel that was held Saturday at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con. The video does not include the 12 minutes of movie footage (summary here) that was shown due to copyright but it does show the Q&A that followed.

SDCC 2012: The Hobbit Panel with Movie Footage

Saturday was a big day for the San Diego Comic-Con as lots of movie panels were held including the panel for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey where 12 and half minutes of The Hobbit footage were shown. The footage has not been posted online but Peter Jackson indicated that at least some of it would be used in an upcoming production video. The info below is culled from Heat Vision, Collider and The One Ring.

Footage Description
- Shot of the Shire as voice over of Gandalf saying "Far to the east lies..."
- Gandalf, Bilbo and dwarves at Bag End discussing goal of recovering their treasure from the dragon Smaug with Thorin saying "Rumors have begun to spread,” he says, “The dragon Smaug has not been seen in many years… Perhaps the vast wealth of our people lies unprotected … perhaps it is time to take back Erebor!"
- Discussion of a plan with need of a burglar to steal a map from Smaug that will help with taking Erebor. Something Bilbo agrees with not realizing that is his purpose in the adventure.

SDCC 2012: Cast, Crew Video Interviews

Saturday was the panel for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con. Before it was held, Peter Jackson and company held a series of interviews with media outlets. The longest was the Andy Serkis one (see here) with a full panel cast doing an interview with Entertainment Weekly. The rest were around a few minutes in length as each person talked about various aspects of the film.

Peter Jackson and Phillippa Boyen commented on their approach to writing The Hobbit film and adapting the book (with appendices). Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield) spoke a six foot person being cast as a dwarf and that making people who have gravitas and size helped when the actors are "shrunk" for scenes along with new techniques used to film since 3D meant force perspective (used for LOTR) was not possible for most scenes. Sir Ian McKellen spoke about how returning to a "younger" Gandalf makes no difference for a 7000 year old character, his surprise that he was asked to reprise the role, and enjoyment of working in New Zealand.

Richard Armitage's Talk Hobbit With MTV

As part of their 2012 Ones to Watch series, MTV spoke with The Hobbit's Ricard Armitage as he spoke about working on The Hobbit and his role of Thorin. Filming is currently on break but the third block will start at the end of January until July with possibility another block in 2012. Below are the highlights (with spoilers if not read the book) with the full Q&A here.

MTV: Is it easy to forget you're acting? Do you get lost in the world the production creates?
Armitage: The soundstages they made in Wellington, [New Zealand], most of the time it doesn't feel like we've been working on a set. Even when there's a green screen there, Peter's vision of it is so clear and his description of it is so clear. The pre-production CGI that they've already created really fires up your imagination. That was the shoot we started with. On location, it's just theirs to program these amazing images into your head, so we can now take them back into the studio.

AICN's The Hobbit Set Report Part 5

Once again Ain't It Cool News' Quint has posted the next part of his series of set reports from The Hobbit in New Zealand. The last part (part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4) focused on filming at Denize Bluffs' forest and continues to do so here. Below are the highlights, click here for the full article and set images.

Highlights:

Thorin Oakenshield Revealed

The final dwarf of The Hobbit films has been revealed by The One Ring. Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield is shown below in full makeup and costume along with his weapon Orcrist, the Golbin-cleaver. If wish to see the other 12, below are links. Also The One Ring has links to a collage of the 12 together along with wallpaper of various sizes.

Oin & Gloin | Nori, Ori & Dori | Bofur, Bombur, & Bifur | Balin & Dwalin

As a young Dwarf prince, Thorin witnessed the destruction and terror wrought when a great fire-breathing Dragon attacked the Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. After slaughtering many of Thorin’s kin, the great serpent, Smaug, entered The Lonely Mountain and took possession of its vast store of gold and jewels. No-one came to the aid of the surviving Dwarves, and thus, a once proud and noble race was forced into exile. Through long years of hardship, Thorin grew to be a strong and fearless fighter and revered leader. In his heart a fierce desire grew; a desire to reclaim his homeland and destroy the beast that had brought such misery upon his people. So when fate offers him an unusual ally, he seizes the chance for revenge.