When the second and third installments of the Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug (out Dec. 13, 2013) and There and Back Again (out July 18, 2014), arrive in theaters, we’ll encounter some familiar faces as well as some new ones as Bilbo and the dwarves continue their perilous journey to the Lonely Mountain, home of the dragon Smaug. One familiar face will be Orlando Bloom’s elf Legolas (pictured here in a shot from There and Back Again – click to enlarge), a major character in the Rings trilogy but one not mentioned in the Hobbit book.

So what is he doing in these films? “He’s [elven king] Thranduil’s son, and Thranduil is one of the characters in The Hobbit, and because elves are immortal it makes sense Legolas would be part of the sequence in the Woodland Realm,” director Peter Jackson explains. Conferring with Legolas is one of the Hobbit trilogy’s major new faces: the heroic human Laketown warrior Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans). “Bard is an interesting character, but [in the book] he’s kind of a random character who comes in after the fact,” says screenwriter and producer Philippa Boyens. “We take more time introducing him. We know from what follows that he was a father, so we [explore] that. I don’t think we take liberties, because it’s all there in the storytelling.”

沪江娱乐：由彼得·杰克逊导演的《魔戒》前传《霍比特人1：意外旅程》本月14号才在北美正式上映，《娱乐周刊》今日曝光了将于2014年暑期上映的《霍比特人3：去而复归》的首张剧照。奥兰多·布鲁姆饰演的精灵王子莱格拉斯惊艳亮相，身旁是卢克·伊万斯饰演的巴德。在《霍比特人1》中精灵王子的父亲——瑟兰迪尔 (Elven King Thranduil)将有重要戏份，他囚禁比尔伯·巴金斯和其他小矮人们，因为他们误闯进了他的地盘。该角色由曾出演《灵指神探》、《坠入》的李·佩斯饰演，扮相英气逼人，至于精灵王子为什么会帅气地出现在《霍比特人》中，据主创解释，因为精灵们是不朽的，所以两人都很俊美是可以理解的。

《霍比特人》由新线公司和米高梅公司共同拥有，其中新线公司负责制作，母公司华纳兄弟负责影片的全球发行，而电视方面的版权则归米高梅公司。根据华纳的最新计划，三部曲的剩下两部《霍比特人2：史矛革荒漠》与《霍比特人3：去而复归》将分别与2013年12月13日和2014年7月18日亮相北美院线。这三部影片均使用3D EPIC Digital Cameras摄影机拍摄，并采用了每秒48帧的高频新技术拍摄，期望带给观众更加流畅逼真的视觉体验。