Luke Evans Heading to New Zealand

Luke Evans, currently making the rounds to promote Immortal, spoke briefly with MovieFone about what his next on his schedule - The Hobbit. He will be spending the next year filming the role of Bard the Bowman, suggesting that the character will have a much more central role in events than he had in the book.

Have you been practicing your archery skills?
Yes, I was trained for three weeks in New Zealand with a stunt coordinator, learning my new weapon. I've gone from swords in 'Musketeers' and a bow -- a long bow at that -- for 'The Hobbit,' so it's been a really interesting education, because there's very different ways of using a bow and arrow, so I've learned lots of them to make it look realistic.

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Video Part 3

Warner Bros has posted their third video to promote The Lord of the Rings: War of the North that is in stores now. The first two videos can be found here and here. The video continues the theme of using the game actor, makers and attractive entertainment talent to talk about the franchise and why the game is worth getting.

AICN's The Hobbit Set Report Part 1

Quint, of Ain't It Cool News, reminds us of why we should hate him or at least confuse intense jealousy for hate. He has been given a rare opportunity to not just report from a movie set, but to spend two months reporting from the sets of The Hobbit films. He will get to see first-hand what all the rest of us experience as brief glimpses in behind the scenes extra features. Did I mention he got to play a Hobbit extra? Yep, feeling the hate/jealousy.

The first report, which is just his first day on set, comes from Hobbiton. He reports from the first day the newly restored set started filming for the first time in 10 years. It begins with Frodo Baggins. Below is highlights (spoiler warning). The full report is worth reading, as includes a lot of little details and introduces you to some of the crew of the film. That can be found here.

Highlights:
- First scene shot is Frodo (Elijah Wood) getting the mail at Bag End. Later filmed placing a "No Admittance Except on Party Business", which is likely when the party of held for Bilbo Baggins in the opening of Fellowship.
- Ian Holm will reprise his role but through the magic of editing as his scenes where shot in London with Martin Freeman standing in on the Hobbiton set.
- The scene is Frodo wondering if Gandalf will show up with Bilbo saying he will to show off his "whiz-poppers."
- I guess this or something after leads old Bilbo to reminisce about when he was waiting on Gandalf as things transition to 60 years earlier as young Bilbo is smoking as Gandalf arrives to kick off his first adventure.
- Production intrusions went from the livestock not cooperating (runaway cow), to paparazzi showing up in loud plains and copters to takes pictures, ruining shots.