The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which has amassed over $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales since its release in December, makes its debut for home viewing via 3D Blu-ray and DVD today with an impressive amount of bonus features. Director Peter Jackson returned to New Zealand to film the highly anticipated prequel trilogy to The Lord of the Rings, and fans returned to theaters in droves to see what he had up his sleeve, and we have two more chapters on deck for December 2013 and 2014.
You can read my review of the film, as presented in 3D and 48 frames per second here.
I was thrilled to cover the press junket in New York City in December as a producer for Access Hollywood, and had the opportunity to talk to Peter Jackson, Andy Serkis, Sir Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage in one-on-one interviews.
Below are excerpts from the Andy Serkis chat, he is always enthusiastic to talk about the technical behind-the-scenes magic that provide the visual backbone for huge fantasy films like this. I had previously geeked out with him during an interview for Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011, you can see some of that here.
This time we chatted up the performance capture involved for bringing Gollum to life and how the technology has improved over the years, the crucial 12-minute cave scene featuring Gollum and Bilbo Baggins, his dual role on the set as actor and Second Unit Director, and how he deals with fans who feel the need to do their best Gollum imitation when they meet him.
