Gandalf meets Lilly Savage
 

I have just watched Sir Ian talk about The Hobbit Movie on The Paul O'Grady Show (13th October 2009 Channel 4, UK). He has just received the scripts for the film. He seems to think that Bilbo will be played by a high profile British actor, so it looks like things are on the move.

And TheOneRing has this comment, included is an
interesting one about the cast.
Oh, no! Could Leggy be back skateboarding down Erebor! :eek:

I think that if they include the attack on Dol Guldur by The White Council, in their attempt to drive out The Necromancer, then quite a few cast members will be returning.

And yet..... http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=26035
'Original cast members returning' may mean no more than AS & (prob.) Hugo Weaving. I read somewhere that Christopher Lee feels too old to return to New Zealand.

Of course there is no reason the council scene could not be filmed anywhere if they wished ot include it. ..it would be away from the main action and I can't see that there would be much problem in Weaving, McKellen and Lee filming a few scenes in London while the main filming of Bilbo and the dwarves proceeded in NZ.

I suspect the Ian McK quote that davem cited refers to the many characters from LOTR which are not in THE HOBBIT. Outside of Gandalf, Elrond and Gollum, and of course Bilbo but that is a different and younger actor - which other actors would be needed? They could find something for Galadriel and Saruman as part of the White Council but you can think of two dozen roles and actors who were in LOTR that are simply not needed for this.

I think that is what Sir Ian means by the disguised as dwarves line .... Boyd, Astin, Wood, etc.

If it is a "straight" two part adaptation of The Hobbit rather than Hobbit plus fill in then there isn't ... at a stretch they might get Legolas in and Orlando Bloom is still young enough to get away with it since an elf would at least not be expected to look younger in The Hobbit than in LOTR merely unchanged. I don't think it would be a great idea though. If it were a voice part like Treebeard John RD would do Beorn as well as many if they include that episode but from what I recall he wouldn't do the latex mask again for all the tea in China.

I wonder how they will handle the dwarves. Half of them have no discernable personality or more than a couple of lines yet they will be in most of the scenes. Really could be anyone behind the masks... glorified extras or ?

I recall speculation some time back (before, I think, any Hobbit film was formally announced) that, if a film of the Hobbit was ever made, they might cut down the number of Dwarves. In some ways it would make sense, for the reasons that you state, to amalgamate some of them so as to end up with a smaller, but more individually well-defined, group. Have any of those with their ears to the ground on this heard anything to this effect?

Btw, I am still hoping for Martin Freeman in the role of Bilbo ...

I think they reduced the number when they did a stage version about 10 years ago.. but if you cut them then you don't get the impact of the dozen dwarves coming to tea (six is not a big deal..) and a dozen is a fairly small party to reclaim the mountain, fewer might be ridiculously quixotic. I suppose that Thorin will be a big name actor, Fili and Kili, Balin, Dori and Bombur will be well known and for the rest it will be the gig of a lifetime for half or dozen or so Kiwi journeyman actors filling up the background. Though if they are looking to save cash they might digitally create them :p

Why not have JR-D as Gloin and give him some of Balin's bits. (After all, in PJ's movies he did quite a bit of switching speakers-beginning with the prologue). Some of Balin that could be transferred to Gloin:
You could certainly explain the family resemblance of Gloin to Gimli. :)