The Point Radio: THE HOBBIT An Much Expected Return To The Screen

This weekend, Peter Jackson’s HOBBIT – AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY opens in theaters. We talk to cast members Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and Elijah Wood on what is was like to return to the franchise after nearly a decade. Plus The FANTASTIC FOUR film moves forward, Gail Simone moves on and THE SAINT may be moving back to TV. Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. It's finally here. The Hobbit hits theaters this week and we begin our look at the film, including a talk with the cast members returning once again to the Shire. And what's that like? In the meantime, The Saint may become a back to television and the Fantastic Four are headed to the movies one more time. Let's get to The Point right now.

This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. There's no hype when we say that one of the most anticipated movies of the year has got to be The Hobbit from Peter Jackson. And that excitement extends behind the cameras too, as explained by actor Richard Armitrage, who plays Thorin, and told me what it was like to get back to work with some old and some new cast members.

We arrived together at the beginning of 2011 and we went straight into a training program, all the dwarves together. Martin joined as well, even though he wasn't a dwarf. So there was a bonding experience which became extended because there was a delay in filming. So that process really formed our group. And the status and the hierarchies formed during that process. But in terms of coming into an old franchise or an existing franchise, we were just always

made to feel very welcome like we were coming into a family. And so many people returned that were working on the Rings trilogy. It was just very easy. Richard's the first to admit that in the beginning, well, he was not necessarily a fan of the Tolkien material. Yeah, I thought the Lord of the Rings movies were fantastic. I didn't grow up as a Tolkien

head really. I read Tolkien in the run up to this. So my experience of Middle Earth was via the films, which I think are still great pieces of work. From my point of view, turning up and being involved in it, it was just a pleasure to be with Pete. It was a pleasure to be with a crew that committed, to get to know actors who I knew a little bit from home, but not very well, who subsequently became friends, you know, and meet other people

I've never met, whose work I liked. And yeah, it was great. It had a way of not being intimidating, which was lovely. Those incredible makeup transformations are as incredible to the actors as they are to the fans, as Richard tells us. The first time you ever, well, I was ever created into a dwarf. It's quite shocking.

I remember they did like a time lapse photography of the process and it took something in the region of four and a half hours. And I actually kept my eyes closed for all of it because I didn't want to see how it worked and then just open my eyes at the end. And it's very strange when you don't recognize yourself. And actually at that point, it was quite extreme. But they went through a process of sculpting many different kinds of face. And I had an

amazing sculptor called Jamie Beswarik, who I used to go visit at Weta so that he could kind of look at my face and it would help him with his work. And they eventually found something which was invisible, but it was still there. It was still dwarf. And that's down to, you know, how amazing Weta is. And also Tammy Lane, who's an Oscar winning prosthetics artist, her work is completely invisible. So, but in terms of getting into character,

it's always brilliant when you look in the mirror and you don't really recognize yourself. So I really enjoyed that side of the process. Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo, weighs in. It was sort of gradual because, you know, Bilbo went through a few phases, like there were a couple of noses for Bilbo. The idea of him having a more snub nose or just a more

slightly Serana de Bergerac kind of shaped nose. And then it was decided that my nose was weird enough. But the wig sort of slightly changed and the color changed. So it went from a more sort of middle aged rocker to being, you know, what Bilbo looks like now. Yeah. So it was kind of, it was gradual. It wasn't just like, you know, one minute you're you and then the next minute you look like your character. It's an incremental process.

How about Frodo? Actor Elijah Wood talks about his return to the franchise. I don't know. I think that playing Frodo over the course of four years, ending that chapter. And then the funny thing happens is the films came out and then the character and all of the characters kind of get absorbed in popular culture. So there's the character kind of became bigger than I. And so the characters in that way have been with me ever since.

The emotional sort of end, you know, kind of came at the last bit of pickups and that was sort of it for me in terms of playing the character. But the character is a funny thing being a part of something that is so known in popular culture is the characters everywhere. You know, people on the street daily reference Frodo and it's kind of been that way ever since. We've got more with a hobbit coming up. Meanwhile, it opens in theaters this week. Well, it is still

getting close to that time. So we got to keep an eye on gift giving when we head in the comic stores this week. So a few of these things are recommended for some of your comic loving buddies or maybe just for yourself. If you go that route, for example, the Russ Manning Tarzan volume coming from Dark Horse collects probably one of the best adaptations of that character over any decade into a beautiful hardcover collection. Just under 50 bucks for this one.

Also from DC, the DC Comics new 52 zero omnibus containing all the new 52 zero issues in one kind of a pricey package for about 150 bucks. They're much cheaper and maybe a touch more enjoyable. Parker the hunted the beautiful Darwyn Cooke book is adapted into a soft cover version this week for just under $18 and the Star Trek newspaper strips are collected into a volume this week for just under $50 from IDW and from image the fourth walking dead omnibus hardcover

volume this week. That's about 100 bucks. Want to spend a little less and enjoy things a little more. Well, there's some great just regular comics on the stands to who you head to the store this week. I'm on three different tie ins to the Batman story arc death of the family this week. It takes place in Batgirl 15, Batman 15 and Batman and Robin 15. And let's take a head to a great stocking stuffer for anybody in your household. First issue of Monsters Inc to celebrate the

return of that movie to the big screen that comes this week from Marvel. All these and more in great comic book stores all over America. Check out the list of those with the comic book locator servers 1 888 comic book toll free or with an app you can get right now in the iTunes app store. Let's jump into the very latest in pop culture. Hey, did you know there's a pilot being made for a reboot of The Saint and Roger Moore is involved which makes it even cooler. Moore and his son are co producers

of the project which stars Adam Rainier and also Elijah Dusku is attached to the project as well. It's the FF versus the Avengers on the big screen. It looks like Fox is finally getting their act together for a fantastic four movie reboot and they've scheduled it to be in the theaters on the 6th of March of 2015 which is just a couple of months ahead of the next Avengers movie being planned by Marvel Studios. Well I did have to slow down some time in the year that seen consistent

growth of comic and graphic novel sales in the comic stores. November saw a bit of a downturn in that month when you compare sales between there and of course the same month in 2011 but there are some factors to be taken into consideration and of course it was a big month for Marvel due to the release of the Marvel now titles. We'll cover the whole sales picture for November in comic book stores coming up. Well as the end of the year approaches there are plenty of

lists out there. One of our favorite is the worst toys for Christmas list done every year by the folks of the Christian Science Monitor and this year well particular attention is paid to the Walking Dead. MacFarlane Toys the Walking Dead Zombie Action Figure is the number five worst toy for Christmas on the list. The monitor is most concerned about the age appropriateness of the toy saying that it's not for children which means it's not really a toy and it's more aimed at those

13 years of age and up. Was she fired? Did she quit? Was she shoved out? Well whatever the reason is it's true that Gail Simone is off the new 52 Batgirl title. Her last issue will be the conclusion of the Death and the Family series which will be number 16 that hits comic book stores in January. No word yet on other projects that Gail may be picking up for DC or any other publisher. There's another page of the Kevin Smith retirement story of course that's one that's been out there at least

as a rumor for a long time including one last year that said that after Red State was released Kevin would retire from at least the directing portion of his career. Now it said that there's a clerk's story on the horizon and that film would put a cap to Kevin as a director. No word yet on when we see a third clerk's however Kevin has said in a recent tweet that he's got 70 pages done for an outline for the film and that giving it to full script wouldn't take that long.

Comics and graphic novel sales took a tiny little dip in the month of November in comic book stores down just a little over 1 percent but we should slap an asterisk on that because when you compare 2012 to 2011 well last year there were five ship weeks in November and of course that caused for more ability to have more sales. Once you get beyond that November has some pretty bright spots in it including the fact that Marvel took eight of the top 10 spots due to the new

Marvel Now titles. Also also there were eight titles that sold over a hundred thousand copies in the month and two particular companies managed to get in the top 25 with two brand new titles. IDW's My Little Pony number one and Masks number one from Dynamite both hit in the top 25. All that being said let's look at the top 10 best-selling comics for the month of November in comic stores. Thor God of Thunder number one hit at number 10 from Marvel. Justice League number 14 was at

number nine from DC. At number eight Uncanny Avengers number two at number seven Fantastic Four number one. At number six another Marvel Now title Iron Man number one and before that is number five in Disruptible Hulk number one also from Marvel. Deadpool number one was the fourth best-selling book of the month. At number three Captain America number one from Marvel. At number two Batman number 14 the only Death in the Family title in the top 10 this month. And at

number one best-selling book in November All New X-Men number one from Marvel. That's it for the podcast we keep you up on pop culture 24-7 on the Point Radio. Listen right on your mobile device easy to do with our free app that's available right now in the iTunes app store or if you have a Blackberry or an Android you can listen to us on TuneIn Radio as well. And of course always on your desktop at GetThePointRadio.com. Meanwhile this podcast produced twice every week

by Malcontent Media and it shows up on websites like Comic-Mex.com and Michael Davis World.com. Lots of space there to leave us a comment, write us at listen at GetThePointRadio.com or just show a little support by following us on social media under the Point Radio on Twitter and Facebook. And of course always subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes podcast directory. More on The Hobbit coming up in a few days we'll see you then. GetThePointRadio.com