The first clip and a large batch of high-resolution images from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey have been released.  The clip is quite nice, as it features Ian McKellan’s Gandalf entrusting Martin Freeman’s Bilbo with a very familiar-looking sword.  We’ve seen plenty of money shots in the film’s trailers and TV spots, but this clip highlights one of the softer moments of the film and brings to mind the earnestness that worked so well in The Lord of the Rings.  The new images are also a swell treat for fans, as we’re given a first look at Christopher Lee back as Saruman alongside the angelic Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, as well as The Goblin King and some seriously nasty-looking trolls.

Hit the jump to check out the clip and images.  The film also stars Richard Armitage, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis, Peter Hambleton, John Callen, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, James Nesbitt, William Kircher, Aidan Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown and Stephen Hunter.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14th.

We have 17 awesome new character posters from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to share with you today.  They run the gamut of characters from Hobbits, to Dwarves, to Elves, to Humans, to…whatever the hell Gollum has become.  The design for each of the Dwarves is of particular interest because of the challenge of making each of them unique and memorable.  Be sure to check out Steve’s incredible set visit experience for more information on the upcoming epic film from director Peter Jackson.

Starring Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood and Andy Serkis, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens on December 14th.  Hit the jump to check out the new posters. 

The first TV spot has gone online for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.   It’s a quick thirty-second bit that shows some of the scenes and scenery that have previously been released, but we get two bits of dialogue: one with Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and one with Thorin (Richard Armitage) who both happen to be picking on poor Bilbo (Martin Freeman).

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey also stars Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett and Andy Serkis.  It opens in 3D on December 14th.  Hit the jump to watch the first TV spot.

Motion-capture chameleon Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) has spent the better part of a year, all told, directing the second unit of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy; he now plans to use that experience to direct a performance-capture based adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm. His mo-cap studio, The Imaginarium, has secured rights to the property and will produce the film.  The studio also landed the adaptation rights to the Samantha Shannon novel, The Bone Season, which Serkis also plans to adapt.  Hit the jump to hear what he had to say on both projects, as well as commentary on directing the second unit of The Hobbit trilogy.

A new trailer for director Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been released.  This trailer shines an interesting light on the conundrum of the The Hobbit.  It has to look even bigger than what came before, but what came before what a quest to save the entire world.  The new trailer breaks down the plot, which is about the dwarfs reclaiming their homeland.  So the stakes are smaller, but the adventure is somehow bigger.  Putting that conflict aside, the trailer still makes the movie look like a fun time, and perhaps the best thing about The Hobbit is that we’ll get to return to Middle-Earth.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Mark Hadlow, Graham McTavish, Dean Ogorman, Peter Hambleton, Aidan Turner, Jed Brophy, John Callen, Adam Brown, Ken Stott, William Kircher, Andy Serkis, and Richard Armitage.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in 3D on December 14th. [Update: We've embedded all four alternate endings to the trailer after the jump.]

Director Peter Jackson kicked off Tolkein Week with an introductory video on Sunday and a batch of new images from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey yesterday, and today the fun continues with a new image that teases tomorrow’s premiere of the film’s new trailer.  Martin Freeman looks quite small as young Bilbo Baggins, but he’s too enamored by something in the sky to be bothered by his tiny size.  An Unexpected Journey will be the first installment in what is now Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, and I’m beyond thrilled to return to Middle Earth in just a couple of short months.

Hit the jump to see the image, and be sure to check back here tomorrow morning to view the new trailer for the film.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in 3D on December 14th. [Update: Warner Bros. has released 10 more high-resolution images, including two stunning looks at Gollum, which are now included after the jump.]

Although the release date is more than 18 months away, it looks like director Rupert Wyatt may be stepping away from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  Wyatt directed the 2011 reboot/prequel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and was expected to return for multiple sequels along with star Andy Serkis.  Now, reports are coming out that Wyatt is exiting the production with the explanation that he doesn’t feel comfortable making the expected release date of May 23, 2014.  Hit the jump for much more, including what this move means for the future of the sequel and for Wyatt’s career.

You know a movie is getting close to opening when the studio releases an app.  Welcome to Warner Bros.’ “Hobbit Movies,” the official app for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, starting with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The program is chock full of behind-the-scenes media, story information, a ton of character images and production stills and even the famous map of Middle Earth.  We’ve wrangled up an image gallery, which features a lot of great looks at the dwarves in the party and the first look at Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies) as the Elvish king, Thranduil (and Legolas’ father).  Hit the jump to check out the images and to find out where you can download the app.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis, opens December 14th.

When director Peter Jackson touted the high frame rate of 48 frames per second for his upcoming fantasy epic, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, we were understandably excited.  However, the reality of the technology had the unexpected consequence of looking too real, as if one were standing on set watching a movie being filmed.  While Warner Bros. still believes that 48fps is the way of cinematic future, they’re being careful with their first major release by limiting the sites that will screen The Hobbit at the higher frame rate.  There is talk of expanding the release of future installments in 48fps dependent on audience reaction.  Hit the jump for more.

A new trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has gone online.  As it’s only subtly different from the one that was previously released, folks are referring to this one as The Hobbit 1.1.  Regardless, I’ll take any new footage of Martin Freeman and Ian McKellan I can get at this point.

The film also stars Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Andy Serkis, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, and Stephen Fry.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released on December 14, 2012.  Hit the jump to check out the new trailer.

In my recap of the panel for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at Comic-Con, I noted how fantastic Gollum looked in the footage that was shown to us. Obviously visual effects technology has only gotten better since Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and this newly rendered Gollum in action was a sight to behold.  Two new images from the first film in what may or may not end up being a Hobbit trilogy have landed online, giving those who were unable to attend Comic-Con a look at our dear friend Gollum.  The first image simply shows the swell Andy Serkis in his motion-capture suit on set, while the other image shows what his character looks like after having been fully animated.  Though these pictures are pretty impressive on their own, just wait until you see “Young Gollum” in action via Serkis’ motion-capture performance.

Hit the jump to take a gander at the images.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is due to arrive on December 14th.

The latest video blog for director Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has gone up, and it’s quite the treat.  At the film’s Comic-Con panel (you can read my recap right here), Jackson debuted a new video blog that focuses on the final days of principal photography.  A portion of that blog is now available to the general public, along with some new footage at the beginning that documents Jackson’s trip to Comic-Con and the cast’s experience at Nerd Fest 2012.  It’s a nice watch for those that were unable to make the trek to San Diego, and it gives a sort of “behind-the-scenes” look at what filmmakers go through when attending The Con.

The Hobbit portion of the blog gives us some great looks at the city of Dale, the Goblin sets, Beorn’s house, as well as our first peeks at actors Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown and Barry Humphries as Gorkin the Goblin King.  Hit the jump to watch for yourself.

While at Comic-Con for a big presentation in Hall H, director Peter Jackson, along with actors Martin Freeman, Sir Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis, talked to press about the highly anticipated release of The Hobbit films, and whether or not there might be some additional shooting for a possible third film.  During the press conference, they discussed how The Hobbit films will fit in with The Lord of the Rings films in their tone, why it was right to shoot in 3D and 48 frames per second, and the biggest advances in technology since Rings.  You can read our recap of the Comic-Con panel here.

Andy Serkis also talked about how he came to be the Second Unit director, while Martin Freeman revealed that Season 3 of Sherlock is likely to shooting from January through April, of next year.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Continuing on with this massively exciting day in Hall H at Comic-Con 2012, director Peter Jackson brought us some new footage from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as well as some looks at scenes from the second part of the adaptation, There and Back Again.  Jackson shot his two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s novel in 3D at 48 frames-per-second, and following the mixed reaction from CinemaCon I was really hoping to be able to judge the footage myself.  Alas, Jackson opted to screen the new footage in 2D and at 24fps.  Nevertheless, we still got to see footage from Jackson’s return to Middle Earth and hear from the lovely Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and more.

Hit the jump for my full recap of the panel.

I was already looking forward to The Hobbit panel at this year’s Comic-Con just because Peter Jackson’s an affable guy and I’m eager to (possibly) get a look at this 48fps business, but after recently rewatching Jackson’s glorious extended edition versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I’m doubly excited to delve back into Middle Earth.  We recently got a look at a gorgeous Gandalf-centered poster for the film that will be handed out to Comic-Con goers, and now a ginormous poster banner has been released.  We get teases of quite a few scenes from the pic, including the return of Hugo Weaving as Elrond and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and our first look at the character of Beorn.

Hit the jump to check out the banner in all its glory, and be sure to check back later this week for our full recap of The Hobbit panel at Comic-Con.  The film also stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis, and Elijah Wood.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in 3D on December 14th.