Tolkien Week Gives New Images And An Announcement From Peter Jackson

Happy Tolkien Week! For those not aware, this week, Tolkien fans around the world are not only celebrating the 75^th anniversary of the first publication of ‘The Hobbit,’ but also Hobbit Day, September 22nd, the day Bilbo and Frodo were born. What better way to begin the celebrations than to have a special announcement from the director of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,’ Peter Jackson himself!

In a video posted on Jackson’s Facebook page, the director teased some exciting news for fans as to what expect from ‘The Hobbit’ camp in the coming week. Not only will there be some “special content” released from the film, on Wednesday, Jackson will release a new trailer from his upcoming film ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’.

Today, however, thanks to USA Today, we have six new stills from the film. The stills do answer the question of how Jackson plans on expanding ‘The Hobbit’ novel into a trilogy. One way is to expand the roles of minor characters and one of them happens to be the wizard Radagast the Brown, played by Sylvester McCoy of ‘Doctor Who’ fame. In the novel, Radagast is only mentioned briefly as Gandalf’s cousin but he played a very instrumental role in the book ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ in which he helped Saruman lure Gandalf into the tower where he’s imprisoned. The character’s role is expanded in ‘The Hobbit’ as he now appears in all three films. How Radagast factors in the story is not known but all will be revealed when the first of ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy is released in a few months.

So let the celebrations begin first with Jackson’s video followed by the new stills! Enjoy because this is only the beginning of what looks like to be a great ‘Hobbit’ week!