Benedict Cumberbatch is doing the motion capture performance Smaug and voicing for the Necromancer (aka Sauron).
Cumberbatch commented:
"I'm in it and I’m playing a dragon and I’m also playing the Necromancer. And I’m not – repeat not – doing the voiceover,” [1]
"I am playing him (Smaug). I am the voice but I am playing the moving, physical dragon. It’s very exciting.” [1]
Following in Andy Serkis's footsteps, Cumberbatch will be creating the overall performance and physicality for the dragon Smaug as well as voicing the Necromancer. Actor and stuntman Sala Baker played Sauron in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
As Sauron is posing as the Necromancer, the evil sorcerer and concealing his true identity, hopefully his depiction in The Hobbit films will differ from his appearance in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Cumberbatch was quoted by The Guardian as saying:
"I'm playing Smaug through motion-capture and voicing the Necromancer, which is a character in the Five Legions War or something which I'm meant to understand," and "He's not actually in the original Hobbit. It's something [Peter Jackson]'s taken from Lord of the Rings that he wants to put in there." [2]
"Smaug destroys Lake Town", John Howe
The Guardian speculated from Cumberbatch's comment that the Necromancer may be playing a much more significant role in The Hobbit films, than he did in the book. Hopefully, Peter Jackson and the film makers stay true to the book, as the Necromancer does not appear at the Battle of Five Armies, which Cumberbatch mistakenly referred to as "Five legions War". [2]
Sources:
For those of us who have been reading some of the background history of Middle Earth we will welcome adding things to the Hobbit movie which were also going on in Middle Earth at the time The Hobbit events or set the stage for the Hobbit, and the Necromancers role in Making Mirkwood "Mirkier" and probably even sending some of the Orc armies to occupy the Misty Mountains long before the Hobbit and sending orcs to the Battle of 5 armies seems appropriate.
ReplyDeleteExactly! Gandalf left Bilbo and the dwarves with these words on the edge of Mirkwood:
ReplyDelete"Now we had this all out before, when we landed on the Carrock, he said. "It is no use aruing. I have, as I told you, some pressing business away south; and I am already late through bothering with you people."
When I read THE HOBBIT for the first time, I wondered what in Middle Earth could be more pressing. When I combed through the appendices at the end of THE RETURN OF THE KING, I discovered that J.R.R. Tolkien provided an extremely interesting outline. I'm quite confident that Peter Jackson's team can flesh it out in the two movies.
I really hope that they make the necromancer look like Sauron's Annatar form. If you google 'Annatar' you can see the design that Peter Jackson was going to use in the LOTR.
ReplyDelete