McKellen, Weaving, and Serkis confirmed for "Hobbit" film.

[Daneel]

Not sure if this has been posted here, but I thought I'd bring it up.

Empire has a brief article which mentions Guillermo del Toro stating that Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, and Andy Serkis will all be reprising their Lord of the Rings roles for his upcoming film version of The Hobbit.

I was kind of expecting all of them to return, so this doesn't come as too much of a surprise, but it's nice to see confirmation of it anyway. As far as I can tell, there's still no word on who will be playing Bilbo, or if they've even started casting yet.

 

[Skywalker]

No big surprises here, but very nice, nonetheless.

Things won't start seriously heating up until the casting announcement for Bilbo, though.

 

[Starbreaker]

Things started heating up for me the minute I heard "Guillermo Del Toro." I just read an article about him in Wired and he has a multitude of films in the works that I want to see.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Good to have that confirmed even though I fully expected they would return.

Here's hoping Ian Holm returns, in some form. I read an interview from del Toro awhile ago addressing the age issue and suggested that he might cast a younger actor play Bilbo but have Holm narrate the film(s). Push comes to shove, I'm willing to settle for that option.

 

[Starbreaker]

That would be great. I couldn't imagine not having Holm in some capacity.

 

[Daneel]

Things started heating up for me the minute I heard "Guillermo Del Toro." I just read an article about him in Wired and he has a multitude of films in the works that I want to see.

Indeed, he's quite a busy man. And yeah, I was quite pleased when I heard he had been tapped to direct The Hobbit. I was naturally hoping for Peter Jackson, but del Toro is certainly not a bad second choice. Who knows, he might even be... better. I guess time will tell.

As for Holm being involved in some sort of narration capacity... that would be neat. Honestly, though, I think it's the right call to have someone younger play Bilbo in the movie. Holm was great in LOTR, but I just think he's too old to play Hobbit-era Bilbo now.

 

[Starbreaker]

According to the commentary on the DVD, they had to pin his face back when they were filming the scene where he found the ring, and it was apparently painful.

 

[Klaus]

 

[miraclefan]

So does this mean the hobbit is a go?

 

[Prometheus]

glad to hear it, can't wait

 

[Aragorn]

Jamie Bamber as Bilbo? He's already short enough and speaks with the same accent as Holm.

 

[Daneel]

So does this mean the hobbit is a go?

Uh, yeah... Where have you been? It was announced as officially in development, with del Toro as director, over a year ago.

 

[Capt_Piett]

I really can't see anyone else as Gandolf but McKellen, so this is good news. same for Serkis and Weaving.

 

[AJBryant]

I can't help but think how cool it would be to have Brian Blessed as Beorn.