The Point Radio: How Bilbo Almost Wasn’t THE HOBBIT

There is no doubt, THE HOBBIT will be doing big box office this weekend, but did you know there was a point where Martin Freeman may not have returned as Bilbo Baggins? Director Peter Jackson shares the story plus answers the question on why two more HOBBIT films are on the way. And Image confuses retailers with a new “no reprint” policy. 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. Well, Peter Jackson has his own reasons why the Hobbit needs to be three movies, and so does the studio. He's here to explain that and tell us why there was almost no Bilbo in any of the films.

Plus, My Little Pony, Mrs. Christmas, an image takes two steps forward and one step back. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. Of course, everybody's excited about the Hobbit hitting the big screen, and they're especially excited about the return of Gollum.

We talked to actor Andy Serkis about what it was like to bring that character back and how he's a little different in this film. Well, he's, you know, he's 540 years old in this version, not 600, so he's much hotter. Basically, he is, what was great about the Gollum this time around was obviously when we were working on Lord of the Rings, there was no modus operandi in terms of the performance

capture side of things. So that was an ongoing kind of side track alongside the development of the character. What we established on Lord of the Rings, and actually, so returning to the character 12 years later, that wasn't an issue because we were just able to play our scene out and the performance capture happens at exactly the same time rather than when Elijah and

I were working together. We were acting the scenes together, but I had to go and repeat the scenes afterwards on a motion capture stage. But now the technology is in the room on set at the same time. So it really, we played our scene out.

It was the first thing to be shot on the movie as an entire chamber theater piece, which lasted about 12 minutes. And Pete wanted to do that so that we could really investigate that scene and allow Martin to experiment with the character. But Gollum, yeah, the only weird thing about getting back into Gollum was that he is, you

know, we've all discussed this, well, Ian and I have discussed this, you know, coming back to play our characters, you know, these characters have been absorbed into the public consciousness to such a kind of high degree. And there really was a sense of, am I doing an impersonation of a character I once played 12 years ago or 10 years ago, whatever.

So that was the only sort of weird thing was, you know, I feel like Gollum, I'm moving like Gollum, I'm sounding like Gollum, but boy, I've heard thousands of impersonations. You know, is it really my version or is it a pay limitation? Making such a familiar story, all fresh and new again, pretty much is attributed to the great casting, both in the Lord of the Rings and in the Hobbit as well.

We talked to director Peter Jackson about how important that is, especially in the case of Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo. The story with Martin really is, was ultimately simple, but it kind of had complexities. I mean, Martin was the only person that we ever wanted for that role. And that was really, even before we met Martin, I mean, we knew him from the office and Hitchhiker's

Guide and we just felt that he had qualities that would be perfect for Bilbo, sort of that very essential kind of fussy English, slightly repressed quality. We thought he'd be very good at playing that. He's a dramatic actor. He's not a comedian, but he is a dramatic actor that has a very rare comedic skill.

So you know, that was going to be important because, you know, there was a lot more comedy in the Hobbit than there was in the Lord of the Rings films. And it's comedy of a fish out of water nature too. It's Bilbo reacting to the very reluctant, in a reluctant way to the adventures that he finds himself in.

So we thought Martin would be great for those. And we met him early in pre-production and we really locked into him for the role. And then with the delays that happened, which were mainly due to the MGM situation, the delays were like, you know, 18 months really worth of us developing the movie, but not being able to get a green light.

And so we couldn't offer the role to anybody. We couldn't do anything contractually. And by the time we were able to offer Martin the role, he had committed to the Sherlock TV series and he shot the first season, but the second season of Sherlock was going to fall right in the middle of our shoot.

And so he said, listen, I just can't do it. Unfortunately, he had already done this prior commitment. So we were in trouble and I was really panicking. I mean, we all were. We looked at other actors possibly, but unless we got this bit of casting right, we knew

we were going to be in enormous trouble and we literally couldn't think of anyone else that we thought would be as good as Martin. And I was having sleepless nights and we were probably about six weeks away from the beginning of the shoot and still hadn't settled on anyone else. And I was tormenting myself by watching Sherlock on an iPad about four o'clock in the morning,

the second episode of the first season, just come out on iTunes and I downloaded it because I love the show. And I was sitting there and I was looking at Martin and thinking, God, there is nobody better. We are insane.

This is a nightmare situation to find ourselves in. And so when I woke up that morning, I didn't wake up. When I got up that morning, I called Martin's agent in London and I asked if we could find a way to accommodate Martin's schedule for Sherlock in our shoot. Would Martin be prepared to still come down to New Zealand to do Bilbo?

Unfortunately, the answer was yes. He'd love that if it could work out. So what we did with the studio's approval, because they felt as strongly as we did about Martin, is we did something very unusual, which is we started shooting The Hobbit. We shot for about four or five months and then Martin had to go and do his second series

of Sherlock. So we literally stopped the shoot for two months, about eight weeks. And then when Martin came back, we carried on again. And it was actually a blessing for us in some respects. Apart from having Martin in the film, we also got a…

I got time to edit the first four months of shooting. We got time to prepare for the next batch of shooting, because it was 266 days of shooting. It was 18 months shooting these movies. So that little break was actually very welcome, I have to say. Quite a civilized way to make the movie at the end of the day.

And we got Martin free. As you know, this film is only the start. The Hobbit will, of course, be a three film franchise when it's completed. And we talked to Peter about just why that decision was made. I mean, it's a very good question.

It kind of surprised us a bit too. We were originally doing two films. But it's really a question of what you leave out. It's a misleading book. It's written in a very breathless pace.

So that pretty major events in the story are covered in only two or three pages by Tolkien. It's written almost like a children's bedtime story. So once you start to develop the scenes, and plus you want to do a little bit more character development and character conflict than what was in the original book. Plus the fact that we can also adapt the appendices from the return of the king,

which is a hundred odd pages of material that Tolkien developed that takes place around the time of the Hobbit. So we want to actually expand the story of the Hobbit a little bit more. And Tolkien himself wrote that material to tie events a bit more into the Lord of the Rings, which is a book he wrote 17 or 18 years after the Hobbit.

So that all those factors combined give us the material to do it. Catch the Hobbit in theaters right now, including 3D IMAX. 3D IMAX. Who I really need to tell you, here is the very latest in pop culture. It has to be pretty confusing in the comic stores this week as Image went back and forth

on a reorder policy that well, quite frankly, didn't said too well with comic book store owners. Earlier in the week, they said that starting right now, they would no longer reprint sold out titles as they have been. As you know, so many Image titles sell out, especially the first and second issues.

And that image is always quick to go back to press to make sure there are plenty of the material in stores. While they had said they weren't going to do that, starting with saga number seven, that's in the stores right now, it has already sold out. It would not be reprinted.

And it's saga number eight. It looks like it is headed for a sell out as well in a few weeks. And it would not be reprinted. Not long after that, Image reversed their policy saying they would reprint saga number seven.

In fact, they'll be offering it to retailers at a huge extra discount and that they would also be reprinting saga number eight when it sells out in a few weeks as well. They are saying though, this new policy will be in effect in some form in the new year and the retailers should expect an announcement about it sometime in the next few weeks. Partial artist Steven Seagal's original drama series True Justice has a new home and a new

run of episodes as well. It moves to the Reels channel and it premieres on January 4th with a couple of new episodes. There will be 13 in total for the new season, by the way, which will be running on Reels every week. IDW has announced a delay of a couple of items that may have been on some people's Christmas

list. The second issue of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and the second printing of the first issue as well as the complete box set, all which were scheduled for release just before the holiday. Now we'll hit comic book stores after the new year.

The same goes for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret History of the Foot Clan number one. That also will hit comic stores now on January the 9th, to impart to a strike at certain docks around the US and also to the fact that again this year Diamond will not be releasing any new comic product in the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Ah, let the listing begin. End of the year we'll be getting lots of these lists about the biggest this and the biggest that all during 2012. Let this be the first one and I think it may end up being one of the more interesting ones. Here's a list of the top 10 movies that were searched the most on Google over the year.

And you'll find it interesting because, well, it doesn't necessarily correlate to the top 10 biggest movies and theaters for the year. The list begins at number 10 with Dark Shadows at number 9, Taken 2 at number 8, Paranormal Activity 4. At number 7, Egg the Tiger at number 6, John Carter at number 5, Magic Mike.

Avengers came in at number 4, Prometheas at number 3. Number 2, most searched movie in Google for the year was Skyfall and the number 1 movie that everybody seemed to want to find out about was Hunger Games. TNT has announced that while the episode has not been filmed yet, there will be a funeral episode for JR Ewing on the Dallas series.

Of course, actor Larry Hagman left us right around Thanksgiving this year. It was planned that there will be a number of special guest stars for this episode. Already announced online has been Charlene Tilton and Joan Van Arck, both reprising their original roles in the series as well. The new run of Dallas is set to debut on TNT on January 28th.

In an attempt to keep the sales pushed, it already worked for the month of November in comic stores. Marvel has a couple of new plans to spread the word on the Marvel Now titles. First it involves a radio advertising campaign that should take place over the end of this year and the early part of Next.

And there's also of course Jeopardy. Yeah, Marvel Now was a category on Jeopardy a few days ago. Zombies were asked to test their knowledge on the characters and the new comic book series. Now you gotta admit, you're probably missing Walking Dead a little bit during the break that AMC has given us with new episodes set to return not that far from right now.

Well, if you're looking for a little Walking Dead fun to fill in the time, check out thenationalpost.com. There's a graphic up there that gives you a death by death statistical chart of all the zombies that have been sent to their reward over the past two and a half seasons and who's the best zombie killer and what's the best weapon to defend yourself against the creatures. I won't give any hints away because it's worth checking out and again you can do so at nationalpost.com.

On paper it looks like graphic novels took a little bit of a dip in sales in comic stores in November but that's not necessarily true. That 1% difference between November of this year and last really can be explained with the fact that in 2011 there were five shipping weeks to comic stores and that gave more opportunity for more product and more sales.

All in all it really was another great month in November of 2012 for bodily comics but especially for graphic novels as well with some new entries in the top 10. That top 10 by the way is here the top 10 best selling graphic novels in stores, comic stores that is in November. At number 10 Red Hood and the Outlaws volume 1 from DC.

At number 9 the Tip scalped volume that's also from DC. At number 8 Walking Dead volume 1 Days Gone By been in the top 10 for a long time now. At number 7 the 12th Boys Trade paperback from Dynamite. Bloody Doors Off at number 6 the Avengers vs X-Men hardcover. At number 5 Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hardcover from DC.

Of course that's supplemented with a lot of outside advertising. At number 4 Ferris the first great paperback right away from DC. At number 3 from Boom the Adventure Time trade paperback. At number 2 the Fables Werewolves of the Hardland hardcover from DC. At the number 1 best selling graphic novel in the month of November in stores of Walking

Dead volume 17 Something to Fear from DC. At number 3 from Boom the Adventure Time trade paperback. At number 2 the Fables Werewolves of the Hardland hardcover from DC. At the number 1 best selling graphic novel in the month of November in stores of Walking

Dead volume 17 Something to Fear from DC. That is of the podcast for today. We are here though with Pop Culture for you 24-7 on Get The Point Radio. Listen on your desktop at GetThePointRadio.com or listen on your iPhone with our brand new free app.

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