The latest Hobbit film, entitled The Desolation of Smaug is one epic movie production. With all the costumes, set designs and production work that came with it, movie fans may think that the sequel is one hard film to produce. But it's more than that.
The Daily Mail UK reported some of the interesting and outrageous facts about the film of production:
- One entertainment outlet had called the Hobbit films as a $1 billion gamble. It was reported that the first two films cost £315 million.
- Nearly all of the characters on The Desolation of Smaug required a wig. Just for the production alone, wigmakers created 752 individual hair pieces with human or yak's hair.
- Aside from the wigs, the characters also required 263 beards held together by nearly five miles of toupee tape.
Io9.com also reported that the Hobbit feet used in the Hobbit films was a substantial upgrade from the ones used in Lord of the Rings. For the The Desolation of Smaug, the Hobbit crew engineered a slip-on foot. Other prosthetics included fake noses, beards and hands.
The movie's filiming locations were also revealed through the use of a massive pop-up book at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles. The book measured 50 feet high and had the length of two tennis courts. The radiotimes.com reported that the locations shown were in Hidden Bay in Turoa, Ohakune; Forest River in the Pelorus River, Marlborough; Lake-town in Lake Pukaki, Mt. Cook; and Beorn's House in Paradise, Queenstown.
In another move to bolster advertising for the movie franchise, USA Today reported that the national air carrier of New Zealand had the image of the dragon Smaug emblazoned on one of its Boeing 777-300 aircraft. The plane is scheduled to travel to Los Angeles where the premiere of the movie would be done. The premiere is scheduled for Monday at the Dolby Theater in the Los Angeles area.
The movie was shot in New Zealand and would be opening for regular screening in theaters by the middle of December.