Empire has posted a brief preview of its upcoming Hobbit cover story. A slightly younger Gandalf graces the cover. The brief article includes an eyewitness description of the set and a quotation from Peter:

Personally invited onto the set barely a month into production, Empire delightedly watched a film — two films — already in full swing. Thirteen cantankerous dwarves, one barely tolerant wizard, and a befuddled hobbit are seen arriving at the gates of Rivendell and sneered at by local elves. Jackson assures us he is once again reaching for the mighty spectacle of Lord Of The Rings, but also bringing a certain ‘Hobbity-ness’ all its own. “The tone is actually the part of it I’m enjoying the most,” he laughs.

The story will be in the August issue, due out June 30

The LA Times has published a story on Guillermo del Toro, mostly linked to the fact that he’s premiering the horror film he produced, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

In the course of the story, the author drops this remark: “Creative differences with Tolkien guru Peter Jackson led to his departure from” The Hobbit. He doesn’t quote GdT or anyone else on this, so the author may simply be assuming it.

[Thanks to David Platt for this link!]

EW.com has posted a photo of Martin Freeman, looking perfect as Bilbo Baggins, standing in Bag End reading a very long document. Bit of a mystery, since there’s no such thing in the book. Behind him, seen out of focus and through a round doorway, some of the dwarves are visible, sitting around a table. They look suitably large in relation to the hobbit hole’s scale. Also a picture of Gandalf looking pensive and one of PJ onset with Freeman as Bilbo.

The photos are from a story to appear in the issue of Entertainment Weekly on sale June 24, which includes an interview with Peter Jackson! No indication as to whether or when this will go on the website.

I’m off to Italy today for the “Il Cinema Ritrovato” film festival in Bologna and won’t be back until July 3. I’ll try to keep up with news, but there will be 7 1/2 days of screenings to deal with, so I won’t be online much. Maybe I’ll be lucky and my subscription copy will arrive today, before I depart. If so, I’ll report on that before going out the door!

TolkienNut16 has posted an auditorium version of the video introduction given by Peter ahead of last night’s screenings of the extended version of The Two Towers. Most of the production background he described will be familiar to fans who have seen the supplements and listened to the commentary tracks of the extended-version DVDs.

Peter did say one thing that seemed new to me, though perhaps he has said it somewhere before and I just missed it. He says that Fran Walsh suggested and wrote the famous “Go away and never come back!” argument between Smeagol and Gollum. She also directed it, since it was a very late addition to the film. Fran has always been quite modest about this and said she simply directed the scene the way Peter wanted her to. But it does sound as though that scene was pretty much hers from inspiration to execution, and here Peter graciously gives her credit. Of course, it has become one of the most famous scenes in the film.

I have an analysis of it in an essay, “Gollum Talks to Himself,” in a forthcoming anthology of essays about the film, Picturing Tolkien, to be released by McFarland on July 31 and edited by Jan Bogstad and Phil Kaveny. (It’s available for pre-order on Amazon, and given how these things go, it may well come out before July 31.) I hope to post an interview with Jan and Phil about the book in July.

Apologizing for the long gap since his last entry, Peter has posted some news on his Facebook page. For a start, now that there’s a break in principal photography, he’s involved in some location scouting.

He also announces two new cast members for The Hobbit:

Evangeline Lilly will be playing a new character—the Woodland Elf, Tauriel. Her name means ‘daughter of Mirkwood’ and, beyond that, we must leave you guessing! (No, there is no romantic connection to Legolas.) What is not a secret is how talented and compelling an actress Evangeline is; we are thrilled and excited she will be the one to bring our first true Sylvan Elf to life.

I’m also highly excited that Barry Humphries will be portraying the Goblin King, in much the way Andy Serkis created Gollum. Barry is perhaps best known for his business and social connections as the long-time manager of Dame Edna Everage. He has also been an ardent supporter of the rather misunderstood and unfairly maligned Australian politician, Sir Les Patterson. However, in his spare time, Barry is also a fine actor, and we’re looking forward to seeing him invest the Goblin King with the delicate sensitivity and emotional depth this character deserves.

For those unfamiliar with Humphries, he is probably best known (at least in the U.S.) for his drag character Dame Edna Everage. (Peter maintains the widespread fiction that Dame Edna is a real person, with Humphries her manager.) His other major character, Sir Les Patterson, is an Australian cultural attaché in the U. K. (Humphries himself is Australian, and, having been born in 1934, will presumably be the third oldest cast member, after Christopher Lee and Ian Holm. Ian McKellen came in at third in the cast of LOTR.) But he has had a long career on stage and in films, as his Wikipedia entry details. (I note that it has already been updated to include the news of his casting in The Hobbit!)

Peter also promises “a flurry of answers to your questions,” coming soon.

Today TheOneRing.net posted an interview with Daniel Falconer, one of the main designers and sculptors at Weta Workshop, where he was hired fifteen years ago. (Though, as the interview points out, Daniel does a whole range of creative things at Weta that aren’t conveyed by that description.)

Daniel was one of my interviewees for The Frodo Franchise. I told some anecdotes about the tour of the Weta facilities he gave me in an earlier entry. He’s a terrific guy and, needless to say, an incredibly talented one.

Variety has posted an item saying that Luke Evans is confirmed to play Bard in The Hobbit:

Welsh actor Luke Evans has been cast in “The Hobbit” as the archer Bard the Bowman.

New Line confirmed the casting Thursday. Plans are for Evans — who will be seen next as Aramis in Constantin’s “The Three Musketeers” — to begin shooting his parts in August. In the J.R.R. Tolkien novel, Bard slays the dragon Smaug.

Evans will be seen in November as Zeus in Relativity’s “Immortals” and next year opposite John Cusack in “The Raven.” He’s due to start filming next week in the indie “No One Lives.”

Here’s a story on Evans from Entertainment Weekly, also confirming that Benedict Cumberbatch will provide the voice of Smaug.

Stuff.co.nz has posted a short item about a possibly noxious substance that has seeped from the ground in the area of the Stone Street Studios where The Hobbit is being filmed. An environmental team will be investigating. The studios were previously part of an old paint factory, so there could be all sorts of pollutants that got into the ground there.

What struck me was the final line of the story: “A Weta spokesman said there was no filming yesterday, with a gap in work until August.” Maybe I’ve missed something, but I don’t recall seeing that specific a time period mentioned for the current suspension of filming. We have seen remarks by various actors who have returned to the U.K., including Andy Serkis and Ian McKellen. Indeed, Ian today posted this brief notice on his Facebook page: “THE SYNDICATE will play in Bath in September.” (It’s a black comedy that he’ll be starring in.) So it sounds like no Gandalf scenes will be filmed until more like October or later.

With all the disruption of New Zealand air traffic due to ash from the Chilean volcano, it’s probably just as well. And it’s going on for winter in that part of the world.

The BBC has posted a one-minute interview with Andy Serkis, concentrating on The Hobbit. He has returned to the UK after a block of filming–not too surprising, given that his main scene is with Bilbo, and as we all know, Martin Freeman is on a break from The Hobbit while he films episodes for the second Sherlock TV series. Obviously he can’t say much about the actual filming, but it’s interesting that he put stress on what a large number of people who were on the crew of LOTR have returned for the new film.

Bill Hunt over at Digital Bits has a lengthy review of the forthcoming Blu-ray box of the extended version of the trilogy (due out June 28). It’s mainly a lengthy description, going disc by disc, with comments on the visual quality. For example:

The most important thing to know here is that the HD image quality for this film is vastly improved from the theatrical Blu-ray. It’s actually a new presentation, remastered from the film’s original 2K digital files. In fact, it’s breathtaking. There are significant gains in fine detail and overall contrast. The image is delicately textured and refined. You can actually see the very light grain structure of the image, which results in a far less digital and far more film-like presentation. Contrast is excellent, with deep, true blacks. Colors are pleasing too, though it’s worth noting that the color timing for these films has been redone. I’ve confirmed with production-related sources that Jackson and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie were directly involved in all decisions related to this new transfer and approved it personally. So to the extent that there are changes to the color-timing, they were made at Jackson and Lesnie’s direction–the films look exactly as they want them to.

And so on. Very helpful if you’re still deciding whether to acquire yet another set of discs of the trilogy. As I’ve already pointed out, the supplements on this set are the same as the ones on the original extended-edition DVDs.