Just today, New Line Studios announced that Peter Jackson's latest Lord of the Rings films will begin filming in February 2011. The announcement comes after months of uncertainty regarding the films' status, including cast favourites Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis threatening to bail amongst all the twists and turns of pre-production. New Line Studios stated that the films, forming the plot of prequel The Hobbit, would bring "a definitive close" to the franchise that began its blockbuster reign in 2001 with Lord of the Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring. The Hobbit, released as a hardback novel in 1937, is set mere decades before what is in the fictional world of Tolkien referred to as the "War Of The Ring", showing Bilbo Baggins' first adventure with the mysterious Gandalf and a band of elves in a journey taking them through the caves, the mountains and into the lair of the dragon Smaug. Classic LOTR fanfare, then, and ripe for a film adaptation, or two in this case: New Line Studios also revealed that the rumoured two-part structure to be used by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in winter 2010 and summer 2011 would apply here, too, though no point in the book was set as the cliff-hanger. Serkis and McKellen are both set to return as Gandalf and the sinister Gollum- still in his early years of ring manipulation, a plot strand set to shape the entire LOTR saga- ensuring that The Hobbit may just be the "close" Jackson, the studio and most importantly the fans are waiting for.
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