Very good news! After announcing only the other day that he was turning down the role of Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s upcoming Hobbit movie in order to return as Dr. Watson in Steven Moffat’s marvelous Sherlock series, Martin Freeman has apparently been cast as Bilbo after all – which strikes me as absolutely perfect casting. (Remember him also as Arthur Dent, like Bilbo a bewildered everyman thrown into cosmic adventure, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.) This means he’ll be doing both Bilbo and Watson, I hope?
Addendum: Yup, he’s confirmed as doing both. And if you haven’t seen Sherlock, the first episode is playing on PBS’s Mystery! this weekend.
Except if he does Bilbo he’s scabbing – looks like the filming is moving to the UK because Peter Jackson won’t talk with the NZ actors unions.
Here’s some background info.
The Hobbit reads so differently from LOTR that it will be interesting to see what happens with this. I fully expect Peter Jackson to screw this up as badly as he did the Rings movies, but I look forward to it nonetheless. I do wonder what will happen with the depiction of the trolls though.
You mean you expect it to be wall-to-wall battle scenes that feature hideous violence, cruelty, cynicism and glorified blood-lettings in place of characters and plots?
Well, yeah, but my main objection to Jackson’s LOTR was the unnecessary changes he made to the books. What the hell was with the Army of the Dead? The Battle of Helm’s Deep? The depiction of Denethor? Saruman possessing Theoden? The eye of Sauron isn’t a giant floating eye above Barad dur, jackass. If you hadn’t read the books you’d be wondering why the heir of Isildur is wandering about the world, and there’s no mention of Arnor. Miranda Otto gave a good performance, but I was disappointed in the way Eowyn was depicted. There are probably five billion other quibbles I could offer (some of them major) but these spring immediately to mind.