Here is a video showing the Rings cast back together for some fun.
Yay! they will be filmed in NZ!
Brian
I saw this as well. Very good news. 
Man, I’m more tired than I had thought. I was trying to figure out how Ron Perlman was going to be Bilbo’s love interest.
I was also trying to figure out your beef was with Sherlock.
Looks like Martin Freeman will finish a second set of Sherlock episodes before filming Hobbit.
However, I assume the Hobbit will delay a third series of Sherlock for quite some time. I am not sure, but the scheduled length of shooting for the Hobbit is pretty long.
Anyone heard how long? It starts February 2011.
Interview with Jackson about the problems can be found on this page.
http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/10/25/peter-jackson-the-hobbit-interview/
Update:
Looks like Frodo will be in the Hobbit, but only in the opening. I guess he’ll be listening to the story and we flashback to it.
Ian McKellen announces he will be Gandalf in the Hobbit and he starts filming in just over a month.
Great news.
The way he writes it makes it sound like he is thinking to back out, but I’m glad he is committed to the role. Honestly, it does make a difference to me that he plays the part.
Serkis is on board too now, as Gollum. Elijah Wood I fear however will prove to be a distracting non-necessity. Even Orlando Bloom’s cameo as Legolas will prove to be pointless as well.
I can handle Elijah/Frodo as a framing device, as long as they don’t cut to or refer to him during the movie. It’s not my preference, but it could work.
Glad to see McKellen and Serkis on board, too. It would have been fun to have Rhys-Davies play Gloin, father of Gimli though.
I like the idea. These Hobbit films are clearly intended to be more directly tied in with LOTR than the original book was, and the Frodo scenes will enhance that, hopefully without disrupting the flow of the story proper. I’m a huge fan of Wood’s performance in LOTR, though, so my perspective may be skewed - I have to admit, there’s been a small part of me hoping to see him reprise the role in some form since I first completed the extended edition of “Return of the King.”
An interesting opening would be to have Sam reading to Elanor (though Alaxandra Astin is 14)
Christopher Lee is back as Sauruman
http://christopherleeweb.com/
Lots of rumors at TORN. will wait for official confirmation.
Brian
My brother moved to NZ about 14 years ago.
Anyhow, he calls the other day to tell me that he is now a Hobbit!
They had an open casting day for extras and in my brothers words, " They were after short, round people to Hobbitise."
So there!
Cool!
Oh man do I hope this rumor is true!
http://www.movieweb.com/news/the-hobbit-has-david-tennant-as-legolas-father-thranduil
Oh man I would so die of happy if that were true. I love Tennant so very much. His accent makes me a happy person. It’s like all the friendly approachable parts of Sean Connery.
I’m already happy that they’re making it clear that Legolas is part of the Wood-King’s court. Meh about Orly, but consistency is nice, and he didn’t kill the part.
I’ve always thought that was the nicest through-line between Hobbit and LoTR. Sort of a nice thought, somewhere around a campfire between Rivendell and Moria, here’s Legolas telling the younger hobbits all about how Bilbo and those dumb dwarves (with a comic arched eyebrow towards Gimli) crashed their dinner parties like 5 times in a night and THEN got captured by giant spiders.
Then Frodo can tell the story of how Bilbo outwitted the guards that night, and we cut to seeing Legolas being embarrassed that his folk were outwitted by a portly hobbit “thief” with some booze.
Rhys-Davies will never put that makeup on again, I guarantee it. They would have to find a way to make it less irritating.
Here is a quote from Elijah Wood on being in the movie:
I think it will be fine. I hope they get Ian Holm to be “old” Bilbo talking to Frodo. That would be awesome.