Last week, CinemaCon allowed theater owners, film journalists, and other lucky individuals to view ten minutes of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. But instead of walking out impressed by the content, a lot of viewers were left worrying about the film. No, they didn’t think Jackson made a bomb, they’re specifically concerned with the 48 frames per second filming technology turning audiences off. Well, Jackson has something to say about that. 

Good news for frequent guests — and the owners — of the Hobbit pub in Southampton, England: two allies with a pretty decent amount of clout are stepping forward to pay the licensing fees required to let the pub retain its J.R.R. Tolkien-inspired name. Ian McKellan and Stephen Fry, both of whom are appearing in Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit, will buy the rights themselves, which will allow the Hobbit to remain the Hobbit. While this looks like a cut-and-dry case of an overzealous big corporation going after a small business, however, was the Hobbit actually unfairly ripping off Jackson’s movie? Meaning that the company with the rights to Tolkien’s work was in the right here?

The Hobbit was published in 1937, the first work of fiction from Oxford professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien whose only previous claim to fame was writing one of the (still!) most influential essays on the interpretation of the Old English epic Beowulf. It was an overnight success, and it’s safe to say that the fantasy genre was never quite the same. But at the same time, in 1937, Adolf Hitler was consolidating his power as leader of the Third Reich. By May of the next year Germany had already annexed Austria, and Hitler announced his intention to use the utmost military force to subdue Czechoslovakia.

This was the climate in which publishing house Rütten & Loening, while attempting to secure the rights to publish a translated The Hobbit in German, asked J.R.R. Tolkien if he could provide proof that he was of Aryan descent.

You know, I’d assumed that the cast of The Hobbit movies was just about solid, but I suppose I’d reckoned without the movie’s overwhelming need to find weathered older men to play approximately five billion dwarves.

Am I complaining? Nope.

If the name Lindsey Stirling sounds familiar, it’s because this violin medley of the music of Lord of the Rings is not her first medley; she previously did a rather impressive one for the Legend of Zelda. Both are equally sweeping and dramatic, but the LOTR one? Actually shot in New Zealand, at times with a helicopter. Your heart will swell up watching this, and then you’ll remind yourself that The Hobbit comes later this year, and then you’ll just explode with joy. Well-played, Lindsey Stirling. Well-played.

(via Topless Robot)

Let’s just say it: there were a lot of extras in The Lord of the Rings. (Oddly, there probably weren’t that many in the above screen cap.) The army of Rohan was almost entirely populated by extras casting calls for anyone who could bring their own horse, meaning that quite a few of those Rohirrim men were ladies in false beards. And thanks to standard setting DVD extras covering every aspect of cast, crew, and production, a lot of LotR fans managed to absorb just how fun it was to be on set, and fantasize about how easy it would be to get the job.

So it comes as absolutely no surprise today that an extras casting call for The Hobbit got so out of hand that the police had to be called.

Here’s a quiet little wake up for you: Shadowca7 sings all twenty-seven verses of Over the Misty Mountains Cold, which is seventeen more verses than actually appears in even The Hobbit. The folks behind Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings have always been pretty good at fitting music to the many, many bits of poetry Tolkien left lying around Middle Earth, and from the simple snippet of tune seen The Hobbit‘s trailer, fans have been able to cover and recover the mournful story of Smaug’s arrival to the Lonely Mountain (at least, told from the dwarves’ point of view).

This is why we like fans. You guys are freakin’ talented.

(via Topless Robot.)

Evangeline Lilly is something of a Tolkien purist, which is an odd attribute to have when you’re starring as one of the only non-canonical characters in a highly anticipated adaptation of The Hobbit. But frankly, we’re glad she’s here. There. (And back again.) Whatever. We’re glad to have her on board the production, and we can’t wait to see Tauriel in action, especially after hearing Lilly describe her. Beginning with the sentence:

“She is a warrior.”

Well, here we go, everyone. We can now say that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens later this year, and that makes all the new developments even more exciting because they are no longer a year away. And this morning brought us one new development: a tight, intense shot of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and the Sting. More information after the jump.

How did the world wind up with this twelve minute long version of The Hobbit, written and directed by Gene Deitch (creator of some of the most commercially successful Tom & Jerry cartoons), designed by Adolf Born (premiere Czech illustrator), storyboarded, drawn, cut together, narrated and scored in no more than a month?

Why, the unexpected success of The Lord of the Rings and the Tolkien estate’s initial ignorance of film contracts. Here’s the story: