The Hobbit Officially Begins Casting

What’s another morning without hearing something about The Hobbit? This isn’t another set of rumors about script delays, release date changes and so on. No, this is official news. *Gasp!*

Peter Jackson tells Heat Vision that casting on the films starts this week. As things stand, every role is up for grabs with the obvious exception of Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey. Strange that he didn’t mention Andy Serkis as Gollum. I can only assume he merely forgot to mention him.

This revelation also squashed month’s worth of casting rumors ranging the likes of Brian Cox to James McAvoy. To be fair, Jackson did tell IGN Movies last week they were auditioning unknowns for Bilbo in addition to discussions of “name” actors.

As The Lord of the Rings filmmaker further explained to the trades:

"(These movies) have never been a star-driven vehicle. The star is (author J.R.R.) Tolkien and the world he created. We are not under any pressure. We want to find the right people. Casting someone to portray a hobbit is not as easy as you might imagine. They have to have a particular type of physical appearance and a sensibility. And the same with an elf or a dwarf."

He says that and watch it turn out that McAvoy does play Bilbo.