When Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson announced that they were indeed going to produce and create two more Hobbit films, wild speculation began circling about which cast members from the original LOTR series would return.

We don’t know yet who all of the cast members are going to be and who will play the main character, Bilbo, but we do know who some of the returning characters will be. In a radio interview that Guillermo did with Simon Mayo of the BBC yesterday, he revealed that Sir Ian McKellen will return as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving will be back as Elrond, and Andy Serkis will reprise his most famous role as Gollum.

This is great news for those fans, like myself, who thrive on the continuity of characters across a series. I am sure I would have still gone to see the films even if they were recast, but there’s something magical and fitting that the original cast come back. Especially characters as important as Gandalf, Elrond, and Gollum.

In the same interview, he also talked a little about maybe including a subplot in the Hobbit film:

“There is a whole other chapter, so to speak, which is the comings and going of Gandalf which are dealt with — people that know the lore know that Gandalf was delayed with a crisis… with a character that is very shady called the Necromancer that proves to be Sauron.”

Discussion: Who would you want to see play Bilbo?

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