Released between 20, the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings franchise earned nearly $3bn at the global box office and was credited with boosting tourism to its New Zealand locations, where visitor numbers rose by 40%. The trailer, though, suggests Jackson may have finished the job. Tolkien later re-edited The Hobbit to provide a better springboard to the subsequent adventures of The Lord of the Rings, but a second, more extensive rewrite in which he attempted to match the books more closely was left abandoned when the author realised he was destroying the idiosyncrasies that made The Hobbit work. There's little of the sinister overtone and sense of loss that pervades the book's icy and expansive sequels. Tolkien's Hobbit is a very different beast to its darker sequel – a gentle, often whimsical children's yarn with an almost Brothers Grimm-like quality. The wizard, however, can offer no such guarantee. Dragged along for the ride, Bilbo seeks an assurance from Gandalf that he will at least return alive. They sing of "dungeons deep and caverns old" and of a land where "the trees, like torches, blazed with light". It shows a bunch of bearded heroes eating, drinking, swinging their swords and falling over. The trailer for The Hobbit, which has already been watched by more than one million viewers, suggests Jackson's tale may give centre stage to the dwarves. Taking a break from his day job as Dame Edna Everage, Barry Humphries snares the role of the Great Goblin, who presides over a monstrous kingdom in the Misty Mountains. Sylvester McCoy plays the wizard Radagast the Brown, while Stephen Fry crops up as the Master of Laketown. The supporting cast provide an eclectic spread of talent. Andy Serkis, meanwhile, is back as Gollum, the treacherous, cave-dwelling creature who loses his "precious" ring of invisibility and vows revenge. Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf and is joined by Orlando Bloom and Cate Blanchett as the elves Legolas and Galadriel. Various performers are on hand to reprise their roles from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Having initially intended to oversee the project as executive producer, Jackson was finally forced to step in and direct the picture himself.Ĭo-produced by New Line and MGM, with a reported budget of $300m, The Hobbit stars Martin Freeman, graduate of The Office, in the role of Bilbo, while Benedict Cumberbatch provides the voice of Smaug the dragon. "The mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally intended for the project," Del Toro said in May last year. Then its original director, the Mexican Guillermo del Toro, bailed out, apparently frustrated by the holdups. First, the production was delayed by a protracted legal dispute between Jackson and the studio New Line, which had backed the Lord of the Rings franchise. Yet the film almost stalled on the starting grid. Released online, the two-minute Hobbit teaser is here to reassure the faithful that Peter Jackson's troubled Lord of the Rings prequel is firmly back on track and due to arrive in cinemas in time for next Christmas.Īdapted from JRR Tolkien's 1937 bestseller, The Hobbit follows the fortunes of humble Bilbo Baggins, who finds himself dragooned into joining a band of dwarves on a mission to reclaim their ancestral treasure.
#Lord of the rings trilogy trailer full#
It is a trailer to whet the appetite of Tolkien fans, full of misty mountains, murky forests and all manner of plucky little adventurers.