Pj To Produce The Hobbit!

[Thenamir]

I, as you, would love to see David Tennant in almost anything (was rather surprised, in re-watching HP & The Goblet of Fire, to see Tennant there as Barty Crouch Jr.), but you'd have to do some digital magic to his voice in order for his high-tenor to sound serious and resonant enough for a lumbering giant of a man-bear.

[Lalwendë]

He could voice Smaug though (sorry - wasn't clear there!) as there's nothing to say that a Dragon has to have a deep, manly voice. He can 'do serious and scary' very well though as shown in the past series of Doctor Who. Speaking of which, John Barrowman would make a fabulous Elf!

[Thenamir]

My mistake entirely, for some reason I had Beorn on the brain. Smaug is indeed the context.

[Thenamir]

Let me eat a bit more crow, here, and make something a bit clearer. The two films, noted on a news story posted in another thread, will be "The Hobbit" proper, and the "sequel" film will cover what might be called Middle-Earth's "intertestamental" period, the 60 years from the end of the Hobbit to the beginning of FOTR.

[Bêthberry]

Well, if we are looking for a traditional 'deep, manly' voice full of power and authority without being too Darthish, there's the actor who voices Optimus Prime in Transformers. Peter Cullen? It's a good-guy resonating voice.


I just cannot see them doing The Hobbit proper in the first film and then making it all up for the second. I think it would work much better the other way around, so they could explain how TH is merely a slight deviance from the Legendarium in the first, and then to TH proper in the second. Better box office that way, leaving the solid Tolkien stuff to the last. I bet they could get davem to do a good job of it, too, stringing TH into The Silm.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, if we are looking for a traditional 'deep, manly' voice full of power and authority without being too Darthish, there's the actor who voices Optimus Prime in Transformers. Peter Cullen? It's a good-guy resonating voice.


I just cannot see them doing The Hobbit proper in the first film and then making it all up for the second. I think it would work much better the other way around, so they could explain how TH is merely a slight deviance from the Legendarium in the first, and then to TH proper in the second. Better box office that way, leaving the solid Tolkien stuff to the last. I bet they could get davem to do a good job of it, too, stringing TH into The Silm.

davem could be a good Smaug actually, as he's good at being sardonic And they're both Northern too*




*I'm having visions of Smaug in a flat cap...

All this talk of them making up extra stuff has me in fits. It could be a rare thing and be quite decent but the odds are that it risks turning the whole business into being something like a cruddy Middle-earth soap opera, such as so many sci-fi series turned into in the end with all their spin-offs.

I'm also not looking forwards to spending the rest of my whole life explaining to people "No! It's NOT in the books!"

Still, the machine rolls on in so many ways. More money to pay for Hollywood execs' supplies of disco dust and more grist for Tolkien fans to argue about.

[Sir Kohran]

I'm actually not surprised by this; I didn't think that New Line could ever seriously try to go ahead with TH without Peter Jackson on board. That would be the equivalent of Allen and Unwin saying 'There will be more Middle-Earth stories, but Tolkien won't be writing them'. Anyhow this is the best news I've had today and probably all week, unless tomorrow they announce I've been selected to play Bard or something.

Good luck PJ!

[Orald]

Thenamir said:

Let me eat a bit more crow, here, and make something a bit clearer. The two films, noted on a news story posted in another thread, will be "The Hobbit" proper, and the "sequel" film will cover what might be called Middle-Earth's "intertestamental" period, the 60 years from the end of the Hobbit to the beginning of FOTR.

Quick question for you. I understand them making "The Hobbit", but what kind of script are they able to come up with for "after the hobbit but before LotR"? If what you say is true, then how are they going to accomplish this because there really isn't a whole lot to say that could be put into a movie.

Unless of course one movie is about Bilbo and his journey and the other is about more about Gandalf, the white council, and Dul Guldor.