Posted on 12/07/2010 3:40:49 PM PST by Lucius Cornelius Sulla
Cate Blanchett, Ken Stott, Sylvester McCoy and Mikael Persbrandt and have joined the cast of Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic “The Hobbit.” Also joining them are Ryan Gage, Jed Brophy and William Kircher. The films, which are scheduled to commence principal photography in February 2011, mark Jackson’s return to Middle-earth following his Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The announcement was made jointly today by Toby Emmerich, President and Chief Operating Officer, New Line Cinema, Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer, Warner Bros. and Steve Cooper, co-Chief Executive Officer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
Jackson, who directed all three “Lord of the Rings” films, will helm the two films back-to-back, telling the story of “The Hobbit” in two parts from a screenplay by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro.
Cate Blanchett (“Lord of The Rings” trilogy, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) will reprise her role from “Lord of The Rings” trilogy as Galadriel, the Lady of Lothlorien. Ken Stott (“Charlie Wilson’s War”, TV’s “Rebus”) will play the Dwarf Lord Balin, Sylvester McCoy (TV’s “Doctor Who”) will play the wizard Radagast the Brown and well-known Swedish actor, Mikael Persbrandt (“Everlasting Moments”, “Day and Night”) will play the shape-shifter Beorn. British actor Ryan Gage (“Outlaw”, TV’s “Doctors”) will play Drogo Baggins, with New Zealand actors Jed Brophy (“Lord of The Rings” trilogy, “District 9”) playing the role of the dwarf Nori, and William Kircher (“Out of the Blue”; TV’s “Legend of the Seeker”) rounding out the company of Thorin Oakensheild in role of the dwarf Bifur.
. . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at theonering.net ...
Comments by Peter Jackson:
'Peter Jackson welcomed the news of Cate Blanchett’s return to Middle-earth “Cate is one of my favorite actors to work with and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have her reprise the role she so beautifully brought to life in the earlier films” On the casting of Scottish actor Ken Stott, Jackson commented “Fran and I have long been fans of Ken’s work and are excited he will be joining us on this journey.” Jackson also welcomed the addition to the cast of Swedish actor, Mikael Persbrandt “The role of Beorn is an iconic one and Mikael was our first choice for the part. Since seeing him read for the role we can’t imagine anyone else playing this character.”'
‘The Hobbit’ casting announcement ping.
I hope that they will be decent movies, when completed.
Peter, please hurry! I can’t stand it much longer.
Seeing that Jackson is directing, if you like TLOTR you will likely like ‘The Hobbit’, unless you just hate 3-D. I am sure Jackson will use the appropriate lighter tone for these movies.
How can he possibly outdo the Lord of the Rings movies?
Outdoing may be asking a lot, seeing that this is, after all, a kid’s movie.
Wow, that is far more complete a cast of characters than I could have hoped.
Wow, casting big names for characters not even in the book! That doesn’t give me high hopes for this.
I thought he made a mess of the third movie, which should have been the best one. Big fan of the first and second movies.
Officially Gandalf, Gollum, Saruman, and Elrond haven’t been cast yet, although the first two are a virtual certainty. Saruman will be cast, but maybe not with Christopher Lee. Elrond’s character is not certain, but is very likely, probably with Hugo Weaving.
‘Wow, casting big names for characters not even in the book!’
The White Council is in the appendices of TLOTR and occurs during the action of ‘The Hobbit’. It has been anticipated as being in these movies for years. All characters mentioned are either in ‘The Hobbit’ or were at the White Council’.
He was going to have Arwyn at Helm's Deep until cooler heads prevailed.
What the heck happened to Tom Bombadil???
A little off topic; anyone ever read Bored of the Rings. Hilarious, if you don’t mind childish, crude humor at the expense of a great novel. Hilarious. Harvard Lampoon circa 1967 or 68, I think.
The same thing that happened to those haunted moors and the Scouring of the Shire, cut from TLOTR for reasons of length, relevance (Bombadil) and anti-climax (the Scouring).
Excellent! They have a very interesting cast and it’s going to be a tough wait for Part 2...
I dunno ... hard to top Bombadil for relevance in the first book. I mean. wasn’t he Tolkein’s great mystical character, his Billy Budd?
“rounding out the company”
I see only four dwarves mentioned: Balin, Nori, Bifur and Thorin. Recall that one reason they needed Bilbo—their “burglar”—was to make 14, since thirteen was an unlucky number. Looks like they’re about nine dwarves short.
(nyuk nyuk nyuk)
I’m watching `Fellowship of the Rings’ now.
He was not a neophyte
‘Looks like they’re about nine dwarves short.’
The rest of the dwarves were named in this October 21st announcement: Peter Jackson and New Line Announce ‘Hobbit’ Casting “http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2612463/posts “
This is the first official announcement since then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.