Entertainment Weekly have revealed a new image from the third instalment of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy and it features a familiar face from The Lord of the Rings movies. It’s long been confirmed that he would be cropping up in the new trilogy but this is our first glimpse of Orlando Bloom’s return as eagle-eyed elf Legolas. Bloom appears alongside Luke Evans’ Bard the Bowman in this image taken from The Hobbit: There And Back Again, which won’t hit screens until July 18th 2014.
On the issue of Legolas reappearing in The Hobbit trilogy, director Peter Jackson has stated:
“He’s [elven king] Thranduil’s son, and Thranduil is one of the characters in The Hobbit, and because elves are immortal it makes sense Legolas would be part of the sequence in the Woodland Realm.”
With regards to Bard the Bowman’s role in proceedings, producer and screenwriter Philipa Boyens adds:
“Bard is an interesting character, but [in the book] he’s kind of a random character who comes in after the fact…We take more time introducing him. We know from what follows that he was a father, so we [explore] that. I don’t think we take liberties, because it’s all there in the storytelling.”
It seems a long way off until The Hobbit: There And Back Again arrives but it’s still pretty exciting to see a beloved character like Legolas back in action once again and it provides a neat link between the two trilogies. It will be interesting to see exactly how he is woven into The Hobbit narrative but given the expansive story that Jackson has planned and his dedication to Tolkein’s work, I’m sure the director wouldn’t have included Legolas unless he knew he could seamlessly work him in to the broader story.
The whole adventure will finally begin very soon with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey arriving in cinemas on December 14th.
