Overcoming numerous hurdles, “The Hobbit” is well underway and — knock on wood — the production has being moving along smoothly despite the many early bumps in the road to get it rolling. The production has been a pretty open book as far as most tentpole films go, with Peter Jackson actively engaging fans on Facebook, first look photos coming along very early and perhaps the best of the lot, some very well made and incredibly entertaining video production blogs allowing us a peek behind the scenes.
The latest video report hit the web late last week and offers up a few more morsels of info. First up, it gives us our first look at the pre-CGI Andy Serkis as Gollum, who appears to have completed all of his scenes during the first week of shooting. Why? Well, as you may remember he’s been enlisted to do all the Second Unit shooting on the film, a monumental task in an already monumental film. As we learn from Serkis and Jackson, the 254 day shoot (!) has been broken up into three blocks and is currently on break for the summer and will resume in September. It’s kind of incredible to hear Jackson talk about how he’s essentially both in pre-and-post-production on the film all at the same time and the latter half of the video is dedicated to location scouting for the next block of shooting.
All in all, it’s an engaging behind-the-scenes look at what is going to be one massive blockbuster. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” arrives in theaters on December 14, 2012.
