Hobbit fever grips New Zealand ahead of world premiere

Download

Up to 100,000 people are expected to line the streets of Wellington on Wednesday for the world premiere of director Peter Jackson's long-awaited Middle Earth epic The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Stars including Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood, Barry Humphries and Hugo Weaving will tread the red carpet for the opening, the first installment in a three-part prequel to Jackson's blockbuster The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Hobbit fever has seized New Zealand, and the capital is dotted with giant sculptures of key characters such as Gandalf the wizard atop the Embassy cinema and a bug-eyed Gollum greeting visitors at the airport.

Images of British actor Martin Freeman playing the central role of Bilbo Baggins cover the entire facades of office blocks and have been plastered on everything from coins and stamps to the side of an Air New Zealand plane.

Freeman, acclaimed for his work in The Office and Sherlock, acknowledged his part as the hairy-toed adventurer in the much-loved J.R.R. Tolkien children's story was the biggest of his career.

The films were shot back-to-back with an estimated budget of $500 million. Bringing them to the screen proved a saga in itself, taking more than six years after the project was first mooted in September 2006.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was initially poised to direct, but quit in 2010 after years of delays due to legal wrangling between Hollywood studios over the rights to the book, forcing Jackson to take over.

When a green light to begin shooting was finally obtained, a union dispute threatened to move the production offshore - robbing it of its distinctive New Zealand backdrops - until the government intervened by changing labor laws.

Jackson was also struck down by ill health early in the shoot and as recently as last week there were allegations - strongly denied by producers - of animal cruelty and a US lawsuit filed by Tolkien's heirs over marketing rights.

Critics have also questioned whether a three-part saga is truly necessary given the original book stretches to just over 300 pages and suggested that box-office returns could have trumped artistic considerations.

At one point last year Freeman joked about a "Hobbit curse", but with Jackson's original Rings trilogy grossing more than $2.9 billion worldwide there was ample incentive to press on.

The Rings movies also garnered critical success, snaring a total of 17 Oscars, including a record-equaling 11 at the 2004 Academy Awards, when Return of the King took out best picture and best director.

The movies were also credited with spurring a tourist boom in New Zealand and turning its film sector from a virtual cottage industry specializing in art-house productions into a powerhouse worth $2.6 billion a year to the economy.

Tourism has stagnated in recent years, and the industry is hoping the sweeping New Zealand vistas in the Hobbit will renew interest, marketing the country as "100 percent Middle Earth".

The first Hobbit movie will be released globally in December. The second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, is due in December 2013 and the final chapter The Hobbit: There and Back Again follows in July 2014.

Questions:

1. Which city may the movie possibly boost tourism in?

2. Who plays Bilbo Baggins in the film?

3. What is the estimated budget of the film?

Answers:

1. Wellington.

2. Martin Freeman.

3. $500 million.

（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.