The Trivia of: The Hobbit

This is not the first of Peter Jackson's pet projects where he has asked Guillermo del Toro to direct; del Toro was also offered to helm the now troubled Halo movie, but he turned it down to direct his own pet project Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Del Toro did accept the chance to direct this film, but after years stuck in pre-production limbo, he left to pursue other projects.

Daniel Radcliffe, Shia LaBeouf, James McAvoy, Erryn Arkin and Tobey Maguire were considered for the role of Bilbo Baggins.

Frodo (Elijah Wood), Saruman (Christopher Lee), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) are all returning characters from the Lord of the Rings films. None of their characters actually appear in the book The Hobbit. Neither does Radagast (Sylvester McCoy). Though he is first mentioned in The Hobbit, he does not actually appear until The Lord of the Rings, though he was omitted from those films.

Martin Freeman previously appeared in Hot Fuzz, which featured cameos by director Peter Jackson as "Santa Claus," Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) as a CSI, and Bill Nighy (who played Sam Gamgee on BBC Radio) as a police officer. He also appeared in Shaun of the Dead, also opposite Nighy, as well as Penelope Wilton, who had been married to the previous Bilbo, Ian Holm.

Gollum only appears in one scene in the book. Andy Serkis completed that scene during the first week of production, but stayed on as Second Unit Director.

Luke Evans (Bard) and Orlando Bloom (Legolas) also appeared together in The Three Musketeers. A previous version of this story, The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers featured Christopher Lee (Saruman) as Count Rochefort.

Evangeline Lilly appeared on Lost opposite former hobbit Dominic Monaghan (Merry). The two also dated for several years.

Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Smaug/Necromancer) both star together in the BBC production of Sherlock; Cumberbatch plays the title role with Freeman playing Dr. Watson.

Both Ian Holm and Christopher Lee filmed their scenes at London's Pinewood Studios because, due to reasons of health, neither were comfortable flying to New Zealand.

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