Update: OK, Entertainment Weekly was wrong. And right. The online piece said this image is from "The Hobbit: There and Back Again." The print issue said it was from "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.” Which one is it? We checked with Warner Bros. It's from 'Smaug,' the upcoming second 'Hobbit' film. Your dorky update for the day.
Well, movie marketing has reached a whole new level. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" isn't even in theaters yet and we're already getting the first look at the last movie in the trilogy that doesn't come out for two years. Hooray? So here we go, take a look at Orlando Bloom reprising Legolas alongside Luke Evans as the Laketown warrior Bard the Bowman in the third film in the trilogy, "The Hobbit: There and Back Again." in the second film in the trilogy, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”
“He’s [elven king] Thranduil’s son, and Thranduil is one of the characters in 'The Hobbit,' and because elves are immortal it makes sense Legolas would be part of the sequence in the Woodland Realm,” director Peter Jackson told Entertainment Weekly today about the characters.
“Bard is an interesting character, but [in the book] he’s kind of a random character who comes in after the fact,” added screenwriter and producer Philippa Boyens. “We take more time introducing him. We know from what follows that he was a father, so we [explore] that. I don’t think we take liberties, because it’s all there in the storytelling.”
But with some critics already balking at the long runtime of 'An Unexpected Journey' (though our reviewer liked it overall) is this all overkill? We'll find out when "The Hobbit: There and Back Again" arrives in theaters on July 18, 2014. But before that, you'll get part two, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” which arrives December 13, 2013. Yes, there is a quiz at the end of it all.
