The trailer for the first part of Peter Jackson’s hugely-anticipated return to Middle Earth, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, has hit the internet shelves for everyone to get all excited over.

Unless, of course, you can’t stand all that hairy toed adventure from pipe-smoking midgets.

Naturally, the trailer itself is over the jump of this article. This means we’ll have some padding to do before then in an attempt to make you watch it on our site rather than somewhere else. This requires a paragraph to leave you ‘hanging’, willing you to click ‘read more’. Please read more. It’ll be worth it. We’ve noticed a link between The Hobbit and the terrible 80s He-Man film, The Masters Of The Universe.

In the trailer, you’ll see Ian Holm as Bilbo, talking to Frodo, before we jump back in time where Bilbo Baggins was actually Martin Freeman, which is nice.

He then puts a stapler in some jelly.

Ian McKellen shows up as Gandalf, and then the swooping orchestrations start to force you into feeling like a buckle has been swashed or some nonsense.

Then, all the stars arrive, with Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and some other all appearing in New Zealand, pretending it is some magical land of fairies and that little dude with the annoying voice arrived to mention his pwecious.

Just watch it yourself, alright?

But what’s this about He-Man? Well, watching the trailer and seeing the big noses and acrylic hair, we couldn’t help but get a reminder of the irritating Gwildor from the Masters Of The Universe film which starred Dolph Lundgren.

Look. Gwildor is a Hobbit!

Lord of the Rings fans are some of the most peculiar people you’ll ever meet. hecklerspray was once faced with a nutter who had an exact copy of The Ring on his finger, as well as a backpack, identical to one sported by some hairy toed character from the book. He was sat in a pub and didn’t see anything wrong with dressing up like a pipe smoking tramp from the Shire.

Another fan informed us that they wrote out the first 200 pages of The Hobbit by hand, changing ‘Bilbo’ for their own name.

So it goes without saying that there’s a bunch of strange sorts out there who will be already swooning in anticipation at the prospect of the new Hobbit film… however, it isn’t exactly faithful to the text as Peter Jackson has decided to throw some eye-candy at it in the shape of Cate Blanchett.

Blanchett will be reprising the role of the ethereal elf Galadriel despite the fact the character doesn’t appear in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic The Hobbit.

Does someone need to set up some kind of helpline or are we all going to be fine with this?

It appears that Jackson might be trying to make a completely sexless book a bit more pleasing for the trouser shuffling nerds. There’s virtually no female characters in the book whatsoever, so maybe we’ll get to see a scene where Bilbo will accidentally wander into a disco forest full of gyrating lady trolls in bikinis made from pipe tobacco?

In other casting news, you’ll be getting Sylvester McCoy (who played the worst Doctor Who) who will star as the wizard Radagast the Brown. Any hope of sexing up The Hobbit died, just there.

There’s a bunch of other people you’ve never heard of who have been cast in the twoparter, but chances are, you already know the names of these people because you’ve been pressing refresh on some very serious Tolkien fan forum all night, every night, since the closing credits of the last Lord of the Rings film.

Sir Ian McKellan hasn’t officially been unveiled in the cast, but seeing as he’s already said that he’ll be reprising his role of Gandalf, it’s unlikely anyone is going to get the gig.

And boy, if Jackson gave someone else the role, you Lord of the Rings nutters would do something really wild and dangerous… like… leave nasty comments on a blog post or write something vitriolic about it on your Tumblr.

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The Office’s Martin Freeman is going to play Bilbo Baggins in two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit. Peter Jackson has announced it so it must be true. And that’s after Freeman saying that he wasn’t going to be able to do the job a while ago.

In a statement, Peter Jackson said there had “only ever been one Bilbo Baggins for us”. While Freeman will be pleased to land such a huge role, he’ll probably be a bit gutted that he’s thought of as a hairy toed little troll.

Still, at least Jackson added that Freeman is “intelligent, funny, surprising and brave – exactly like Bilbo.” Brave? He’s thinking of Kylie, surely?

Jackson said he was “incredibly proud” to be able to announce that Freeman would be the hobbit.

“There are a few times in your career when you come across an actor who you know was born to play a role, but that was the case as soon as I met Martin.”

There’s a few other Brit TV faces that’ll be appearing in the film, including Spooks actor Richard Armitage who will play the role of Thorin Oakenshield who is leader of the dwarves or something. Former EastEnders actor Rob Kazinsky (he played Sean Slater) will also play a dwarf despite the fact he’s over 6 feet tall.

This pair will appear alongside Irish actor Aidan Turner (who you may remember from BBC Three’s Being Human) and some bloke called Graham McTavish who has appeared on Red Dwarf.

The film hasn’t been running smoothly though. Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films were all made in New Zealand, but thanks to a dispute with the unions, Jackson is looking to film elsewhere.

And it is ol’ Blighty that’s looking favourite at the moment. Well, we do have a lot of nice trees and things that look like The Shire. Sadly, they’ll have to clear out all the piss-stained mattresses and burned-out cars from the glorious English countryside if they really want to get the look right for the films.

The films are due to be released in December 2012 and December 2013.

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The Lord of the Rings franchise was rather successful, despite being rubbish. There wasn’t a single car-chase or decent sex-scene. What a load of rubbish. They didn’t even hire real dragons or anything.

With that, it’s not exactly bad news that Peter Jackson has warned that production on the forthcoming Hobbit movies could cease over a pay dispute with acting unions.

Yeah, hippies. How do you like that? The film might be stopped in its tracks and then you’ll have to… oh… read the book for the millionth time you Shire Weirdos.

In an open letter, probably written in Elvish while smoking a stupidly long thin pipe, Jackson has had to answer criticisms after unions urged actors not to work on the films due.

Organisations in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US have said the The Hobbit’s producers have refused to negotiate a deal with them.

The International Federation of Actors said it was time for performers on The Hobbit to seek union contracts, adding that actors in New Zealand have “struggled on non-union contracts for some time”.

Very much like some dippy dwarf getting dragged along in the quest for some magical jewellery when he just wanted to be sat in his tree-bungalow smoking tabs, drinking ale and shaving his toes.

Anyway, Jackson said this wrangle was a “grab for power” and “an attempt by the “Australian bully-boy” to exert influence over New Zealand’s film industry.

“It feels as if we have a large Aussie cousin kicking sand in our eyes… or to put it another way, opportunists exploiting our film for their own political gain.”

“Seriously, if the Hobbit goes east (Eastern Europe in fact) – look forward to a long, dry big-budget movie drought in this country.”

So Jackson doesn’t like it when actors start demanding that actors get what they think they deserve (of course, all actors deserve complete contempt, apart from Timothy Spall and Julie Walters who everyone seems to love), right?

Not so. Jackson reckons that he’s not anti-union

“[I've] always attempted to treat my actors and crew with fairness and respect”.

Jackson is probably going to direct this new Hobbit project after Guillermo del Toro sodded off thanks to concerns about delays. Weirdly, for a pair of films which seem destined to rake loads of money in (thanks to you Lord of the Rings nutters), the project has not been given the financial go-ahead by Hollywood studios. Yet Ben Stiller still gets work. Astonishing.

Filming is now expected to start early in 2011… but will Martin Freeman star in the main role?

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Martin Freeman is a lucky actor. Like Michael Caine, he gets gigs in TV and film to essentially turn up and play himself. Lovely work if you can get it. And as such, Peter Jackson who makes all those awful Lord of the Rings films, offered Freeman the chance to play himself one again in the lead role of The Hobbit.

Freeman was offered the chance to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit film, and with it, a seven figure salary.

Did he say yes to a film that is almost certainly going to piss coins? No. He said no because he wanted to carry on as Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick Dr Watson. The tiny idiot.

The Sun reports that Freeman reluctantly turned the role down because he was already committed to 20 weeks filming alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Jonathan-Creek-Goes-Brooding show, Sherlock.

A source said:

“It was one of the most difficult decisions of his career. MGM, who are making the film, only got a formal offer over in the last couple of weeks.

“It was too late for Martin because he had already signed up for another series of Sherlock. It was agonising but he had no other choice.”

The fool. He wouldn’t have even had to shave his hairy toes for this role.

The source added:

“All the actors had to read four pages of script to camera which is being shown to Peter Jackson. He is looking for a hidden gem now Martin has ruled himself out of the job.”

The Hobbit is expected to hit cinemas with a bunch of twee hippie bollocks in 2012.

Apparently, not everyone is looking forward to seeing the new adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Well, for starters, there is a deformed bloke in a village in Peru who keeps getting rocks thrown at him and being called ‘Gollum’ who wishes they would forget the whole idea. Saying that, he still has the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy on DVD – gold edition, too.

Then there’s our housemate Steve, who is just odd. And then there is Tolkien’s 83-year-old son Christopher, who just doesn’t like people enjoying themselves.

You know the kind of old man we are talking about. He’s the neighbour who used to look forward to your ball going over the fence, just so he could drive a pitch fork through it while laughing maniacally.

In fact, according to Film School Rejects, even his his own relatives call him ‘cantankerous’ and doubt if he’s ever even seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy in his life.

So what’s his problem? Well, again, according to Film School Rejects, he wants to shut down filming of the fantasy classic on the grounds New Line Cinema owe him bundles of cash (cue more maniacal laughter).

In fact, he is going to court in California on June 6 to ask that the rights to The Hobbit – which will be split into two films and will now star Ron Perlman – are terminated.

He says the only reason his father sold the rights in the first place was to pay for a tax bill. And now he wants them back.

Now, we at hecklerspray are no legal eagles, but we still don’t see how he has a furry, big foot to stand on.

If you sold something to pay for something else, however annoying, you no longer own it, right?

If not, well, just think of what we could claim back.

Anyway, he is still owed £80m under an agreement which gave the family a 7.5 per cent share of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And judging by the lengths Peter Jackson had to go to just to get paid by New Line, it’s not surprising he is pretty angry with them.

He also has an ace up his sleeve.

He owns the rights to Tolkien’s novel and LOTR companian The Silmarillion, which director and Hobbit look-a-like Guillermo Del Toro and producer Peter Jackson hope to use while making the second film.

So we are sure something will be sorted out in time for the project to go ahead. At least we know who the REAL Lord of the Rings is.

It’s official – Guillermo del Toro, the Bo Selecta Peter Jackson, is the director of the two upcoming Hobbit movies.

It’s been a long time coming, but finally New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have announced that they’re packing Guillermo del Toro off to New Zealand for the next four years so he can concentrate on making The Hobbit and its sequel, The Hobbit 2: The Hobbit In Space.

It doesn’t take a genius to see why Guillermo del Toro was chosen to direct the Hobbit movies – his flair for visual invention as demonstrated in Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy will really bring a sense of panache to his task of filming a bunch of midgets walking across the side of a mountain for six and a half titting hours.

There’s no doubting that the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was a landmark piece of cinema that moved the artform of self-indulgent, needlessly-overlong, self-important wankery that gave you deep vein thrombosis in your face just by making you watch it on by years, if not decades.

So it was inevitable that JRR Tolkien‘s other book, The Hobbit, would get turned into a movie as well. It would have happened sooner but Peter Jackson had a fight with the studio and then everyone made up except that Peter Jackson decided he wanted to devote his time to making painfully long movies about dragons or something instead, so a new director of The Hobbit had to be found.

Finding the right director was a hard task, because whoever was chosen to make The Hobbit had to a) stay true to JRR Tolkien’s original vision, b) pad the story out enough to turn it into two movies so that everyone could get twice as rich from it and c) move to New Zealand, The Prettiest Place To Die Of Utter Fucking Mind-Shredding Boredom On Earth.

And while the early favourite to direct The Hobbit was Guillermo del Toro of Pan’s Labyrinth fame, nothing was made official. Until now, as Reuters reports:

Del Toro, whose credits include “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Blade II,” will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work on both “Hobbit” films with executive producer Peter Jackson, who directed all three “The Lord of the Rings” movies, according to New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios… “We have long admired Guillermo’s work and cannot think of a more inspired filmmaker to take the journey back to Middle-earth,” Jackson and his producing partner, Fran Walsh, said in a statement.

So, with filming set to begin next year, it’s full steam ahead for Guillermo del Toro as he makes all sorts of difficult decisions about The Hobbit. Will Ian McKellan return as Gandalf? Who will play Bilbo Baggins? Will del Toro be tied to the visual style of the Lord Of The Rings movies or will he be allowed to make it his own? Will the movie have one ending or will he follow Lord Of The Rings and film 38 different endings and then make everyone sit through them all one after the other for three extra hours when all they want to do it go to the toilet?

In 2010 we’ll find out, by being thumped on the head with The Hobbit marketing campaigns for months before it even comes out until we feel like we’re terrible people if we don’t see it. Then we’ll find out alright.

Read more:

Mexico’s del Toro to direct “The Hobbit” – Reuters

Lava doesn't boil – it makes way for Earth farts. Granted, it may sometimes look as if its boiling, but that's just visual trickery provided by, as we already said, Earth farts. Air bubbles and what not.

No doubt this is the angle New Line intends to play with the new Hobbit movies that are finally moving forward. 'Surprise! The ring's not really destroyed, its just been resting next to a planet sized colon.' Real juvenile New Line! We'll not reward such nonsense with our money! Or our Mom's money! Sure, it's free from the government, but it's because she's disabled! Grow up New Line Cinema!

In more surprising news, Peter Jackson is definitely going to be attached to the film. He and New Line settled their disagreement allowing things to progress. He's not going to direct though. He's going to play King Kong who now conveniently has to destroy the ring the rest of the way. Seriously, it says so on page 12 in the book 'The Real Tolkien volume III,' which we wrote.

Which we intend to write. Maybe next week. We intend to write a Tolkien book maybe next week.

Peter Jackson, who is still fat but uses CGI to look thin, is going to have his hands in the new Hobbit movies. We've heard the new films will have more of a Transformers feel to them, which of course means that they will be about Frodo desperately trying to save humanity by pushing an electric square into Voltron's chest or something. We've seen the storyboard and it looks gripping.

Jackson and his wife will executive produce the new movies, but won't direct them because they are far too busy finding ways for dragons have a meaningful dialogue about race or something. According to Reuters:

"The makers of the smash hit "Lord of the Rings" films said on Tuesday they settled a legal dispute and agreed to make two movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," but most likely without Peter Jackson directing. Oscar winner Jackson, however, has signed on as executive producer along with his wife and producing partner, Fran Walsh, who also was instrumental in making the three "Lord of the Rings" films that earned $3 billion at global box offices."

The first Hobbit movie is said to be titled Gollum: The College Years, and will mostly feature Andy Serkis winning a bet by making an ugly girl popular, winning a sport against incredible odds and/or getting mad and tossing around several drafting tables.

Like we already said, it seems quite gripping.

Read More:

Master of ‘Rings’ to Tackle ‘Hobbit’ – New York Times