More pleasing than simply being titled 'The Hobbit Part's 1 & 2' - New Line, MGM and Warner Bros
have announced that
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will officially bow on Dec. 14, 2012 and "
The Hobbit: There And Back Again" comes a year later on Dec. 13th, 2013. Both titles of course go straight back to
J.R.R. Tolkien's groundbreaking 1937 novel and in this writer's opinion are very appropriate indeed. An updated cast list (re-printed after the jump) went out with the press release and I believe it contains the first official mention of
Christopher Lee returning as Saruman, who at this time in the story was beginning to plot the ring for himself and as we know by
The Fellowship of the Ring, his great friend Gandalf was completely oblivious. Can't wait to see how Jackson handles Lee in this movie and I'm just happy to see him in there as there was some talk that age might have finally caught up with the 89 year old and he might not be well enough to endure the New Zealand shoot. You can find all our articles on The Hobbit
HERE, and the new cast press release is below;
Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey, the character he played in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and Martin Freeman, who just won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the BBC series "Sherlock," takes on the central role of Bilbo Baggins. Also reprising their roles from "The Lord of the Rings" movies are: Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Elijah Wood as Frodo; and Andy Serkis as Gollum. The ensemble cast also includes (in alphabetical order) Richard Armitage, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean OGorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas and Aidan Turner.