Although people who purchased The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey were able to watch Peter Jackson’s presentation and preview of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug live (and if you missed it and have an Ultraviolet code, you can still watch it), you can watch an excerpt of the question and answer section right here…and you might recognize a couple of the people asking questions…
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Tomorrow is the big day – the first installment of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is released on Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow. And while we have to wait until December for part 2, The Desolation of Smaug, we can now journey back to Middle-earth to our heart’s content to see how the journey began…(don’t forget…you can use your Ultraviolet code from either version to access the Peter Jackson Q&A session and get the first sneak peek at The Desolation of Smaug on 3/24!)

(And I’ve discovered that I’ve probably been pronouncing Smaug wrong for many, many years…I’ve always just said “Smog”, but it seems it should be two syllables, something approximating “Sma-oog”.)

First, let’s talk a bit about the feature…An Unexpected Journey covers approximately the first third of the book, up through the Gollum and goblin fights. From my own memory I thought it covered a lot more of the book, but it really is about a third. And it holds pretty true, at least from my memories of the book, which are probably about 15 years removed. It does start with a link-in to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in the form of the older Bilbo (played Ian Holm again) writing in the Red Book, while explaining to Frodo (Elijah Wood) about his big adventure, showing events that took place just prior to his birthday party but weren’t shown in the The Fellowship of the Ring. This serves as a gateway in to the story using the familiar characters, and then flashes back to the younger Bilbo (now played by Martin Freeman), just before he is about to receive quite a few unexpected visitors.
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Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson will host a live first look at The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second film in The Hobbit Trilogy, on Sunday, March 24 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern/12pm Pacific at www.hobbit.com/sneak. Just added: The live event will now include a Q&A with Jackson and fans! Video questions can be submitted beginning March 12 through March 19 on “The Hobbit” Facebook page, or through the Vine mobile app using the hashtag #askPeterJackson. Fans can also Tweet links to video questions using the hashtag #askPeterJackson. The live event will be limited to holders of an UltraViolet™ code, available by purchasing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which arrives on Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack and 2-disc DVD Special Edition on March 19. Visit thehobbit.com/sneak for more information.

Warner Bros has said that that they are pushing back the release date for Part 3 of The Hobbit to December 17th, 2014 from its original July 18th date. This puts it in to the same holiday timeframe as the first two installments, and away from X-Men: Days of Future Past.

We still have to wait until December for the next part of The Hobbit – but we don’t have to wait that long to watch Part 1 at home. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be release on Blu-Ray and DVD in three weeks, on March 19th. Pre-order now!

A full 13-minute making of featurette for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is now available online, and you can watch it right here! Enjoy!
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Check out the latest TV spot for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – and get a quick glimpse of Smaug the Dragon!
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We’re not far from the debut of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – and they are still doing post production! Here is the latest video about the production – and at times, it’s downright silly
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When it rains…it seems the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien is upset over an online slot machine game using the Lord Of The Rings property – so much so that they’ve sued Warner Bros, New Line, and Saul Zentz Co. (the long-time movie rights holder Lord Of The Rings) for $80 million.

Apparently the estate’s lawyers received a spam email about the game, and looked into the rights. In the lawsuit they claim, “The original contracting parties thus contemplated a limited grant of the right to sell consumer products of the type regularly merchandised at the time such as figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing and the like. They did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services.” The estate also learned that a physical slot machine game was also planned.

There are video games, etc. based on the movies, so it seems odd that this particular claim is made, as it seems to imply that those rights were not granted to the defendants.

Surprise, surprise – less than a month before the opening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, PETA decided to level charges of animal abuse on the production, claiming that 27 animals died during the making of the films, saying that “death traps” where they were stabled caused the deaths, and a horse was “hobbled”. But apparently, the allegations come from two particular wranglers who were dismissed by the production for their care of animals not being up to the production’s standards. Other agencies have already stated that no evidence of any of the claims has been found, and even the owner of the horse in question says he is fine.

Here is a full statement from Peter Jackson himself from Facebook:
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