See how WETA brought Lake-town to life for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

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April 3, 2014 at 9:51 am by Demosthenes  - 

The little behind-the-scenes clip of Orlando playing with his knives was pretty cool, but this is just a whole ‘nother level of “wow”. Thanks to Ringer Smaug the Stupendous for the heads-up!

Click below (run, do not walk!) and see exactly how Weta created Lake-town using a variety of CGI and VFX techniques.

To create the city, our models department built 50 unique buildings, eight unique bridges and six towers, all of which were dressed and scaled differently in order to provide the vast amounts of variance required to populate the 200,000 square metres of ground with up to 1,500 buildings visible in some of the shots.

Over two million planks of wood, more than five million roof tiles and 1,749 walkways were created to bring Lake-town to life.

Posted in Headlines, Hobbit Movie, Locations Sets, Production, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, WETA Digital, WETA Workshop on April 3, 2014 by Demosthenes

Smaug Opens Strong in First Weekend of Release

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The remote server returned an unexpected response: (417) Expectation failed.

The Desolation of Smaug's opening weekend US take of $73.65 million fell short of landing the December opening record set by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($84.6M) but I doubt Jackson and company care considering the film took in $205M worldwide essentially paying for itself in the first three days of release. The assumption is the movie will cross the $1 billion threshold and considering the overall good reviews, I see little reason to doubt it. More details on the breakdown here but basically the movie did as well as it was expected to do.

New Lego The Hobbit Video Game Trailer Done Ocean's 11 Style

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The remote server returned an unexpected response: (417) Expectation failed.

A new trailer has been posted for the upcoming Lego The Hobbit video game that is done in the style of the movie "Ocean's 11" that introduces most of the game cast. Very tongue in cheek and cute, the game is set to come out sometime in Spring 2014. What is not clear (and the trailer doesn't clear up), is if this game includes all three movies or does it split the The Hobbit trilogy in two halves with a part 2 coming out later for when The Hobbit: There and Back Again is released.

Behind the Scenes of the Creation of Laketown

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Weta Digital has posted a new behind the scenes video for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The video covers the creation of Lakedown from concept to its pure CGI creation. The home video release of the movie is next Tuesday.

Lego The Hobbit Video Game Trailer

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The remote server returned an unexpected response: (417) Expectation failed.

After the (probable) success of Lego The Lord of the Rings video game, the one for The Hobbit is prepping for release. Below is the first trailer for the upcoming game. Most of the footage focuses on events from the first movie with a second tease of Lego Tauriel. Currently there is no release date but the title suggests that it covers the entire The Hobbit trilogy so probably around Christmas 2014 so as to avoid spoiling The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

New Poster, 3D Featurette for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

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The remote server returned an unexpected response: (417) Expectation failed.

Just cause The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is out doesn't mean the posters stop. The latest features the massive Dwarf treasure as Smaug does his Scrooge McDuck impression. In addition below is a brief behind the scenes featurette with the cast and Peter Jackson as they discuss the 3D quality of the film.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Blu-Ray Details, Release Date

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The remote server returned an unexpected response: (417) Expectation failed.

The official home video release date of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has been revealed. In the US, it will be out on April 8th while in other countries the range will be from April 7th to 17th (list at end). Per usual now, there will be multiple formats for the release, not including whatever store exclusives that are in the pipeline: a Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy Combo Pack ($105.42), a Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack ($44.95), a Blu-ray Combo Pack ($35.99), and a 2-Disc DVD Special Edition ($28.98). All the combo packs will include UltraViolet Digital copy. The collector's edition includes two "Gates of Erebor" replica bookends created by the Noble Collection.

As for as announced special features on all formats:
- Peter Jackson Invites You to the Set: In the Company of the Hobbit and Peter Jackson Invites You to the Set: All in a Day’s Work: Experience the film’s challenges and demands, and journey alongside the director into Mirkwood, Lake-town and Dale as the movie’s most intense, pivotal scenes are created
- Production Videos: Watch production come to life as Peter Jackson gives you an inside look at the making of the film
- New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth, Part 2: Travel with Peter Jackson and his team across the stunning locations of New Zealand transformed by the filmmakers into Middle-earth
- “I See Fire” Music Video: Ed Sheeran’s beautiful theme song from the film is illuminated with this intimate music video

Chances are there will be a few more special features, released as store exclusives with most of the goodies saved for the Extended Edition that will be released sometime in December.

Regional release dates:
April 7: UK
April 8: USA, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Hungary
April 9: Italy
April 11: Germany
April 16: France, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia
April 17: Brazil