The rebuilding of Hobbiton

Many fans of The Lord of the Rings movies, not to mention fans of all of J. R. R. Tolkien’s books set in Middle-earth, have long-awaited a feature-length, live action film of The Hobbit. Fortunately, we don’t have much longer to wait. TheOneRing.net has announced the rebuilding of Hobbiton to support the production of The Hobbit and its sequel.

It appears the producers of the movie are going to split the book into two movies, like the next Harry Potter movie, instead of squishing the book and losing a large amount of content. The first movie is scheduled for December 2011, with the second one releasing in December 2012. There is also discussion about a “bridging” movie that would take place after the second film, chronicling the events missing between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The movie would also, apparently, dip into The Silmarillion, another Tolkien book set in Middle-earth.

Peter Jackson has named Guillermo del Toro as director for the two Hobbit movies, and the pair have chosen Rowan Atkinson — well, no, they haven’t chosen anyone yet although the money’s on David Tennant — as the new Bilbo Baggins, taking over for Ian Holm, who played the character in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is all assuming that the Tolkien Trust is unable to stop the production of The Hobbit.

To carry on the theme from Nicole Bremer Nash’s Geekend post published yesterday, do you think The Hobbit will be worth paying theater prices to see?