By now you probably have heard that Ian McKellen made a surprise visit to the British Film Institute’s marathon trilogy screening and confirmed that he’ll be back in New Zealand for filming starting in March. He expects to receive a script soon and says he knows who has been cast as Bilbo. (He says “Frodo” by mistake, but it’s clear what he means.) Fan Karl Falconer got a huge scoop by filming Ian with his cell phone. The result, posted on Facebook, shows Ian from a great distance, but the spectator can hear his dulcet tones dispensing information.

(I’m not sure whether you have to be a member of Facebook to get through to the clip, which is a little under 3 minutes long. After clicking on the link at TORN, I was asked to login.)

This is all pretty much what we’ve known and/or suspected was happening. Principal photography has long since been announced as beginning in March. Few things were as certain as that Ian and Andy Serkis would be returning. Peter announced at Comic-Con that in three weeks the script for the first part of The Hobbit would be sent to New Line/Warner Bros. for approval. Now, about four weeks later, it sounds as though the writers met their deadline.

In short, movement toward making The Hobbit a reality is happening as expected, and it’s great to hear the confirmation of all that from Ian’s own mouth! I suspect that very soon we’ll be getting a lot more real news.