No, you didn't read that title wrong. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey doesn't hit theaters for another week and already the marketing push for the follow-ups has begun. EW has revealed this first image of Orlando Bloom reprising his role as the archer elf, Legolas, alongside Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit: There and Back Again.
Peter Jackson spoke a little about how Legolas fits into his latest trilogy....
Jackson: “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."
Thranduil is played by Lee Pace, and rules the realm known as Mirkwood. The Bard was an important human character in Tolkien's novels, as he represents the best of man in much the same way Aragorn does in the subsequent stories. But his character doesn't actually make an impact until much later on, something which Jackson and screenwriter Philippa Boyens set out to change...
Boyens: "Bard is an interesting character, but [in the book] he’s kind of a random character who comes in after the fact. 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.”
Is this too much too soon? Or is MGM smart in whetting our appetites so early? The Hobbit: There and Back Again opens on July 18th 2014.
