Filming of the "Hobbit" due to start good news for Lord of the Rings fans

After numerous hiccups, The Hobbit officially has a start-date. The film’s production company, 3Foot7 Ltd, announced today that shooting of the Lord of the Rings prequel will begin on March 21 at Stone Street Studios in Miramar and on location around New Zealand. “Despite some unavoidable delays we are fully back on track and very excited to get started,” said director Peter Jackson in a statement

Fear not, Hobbit-watchers: The band is getting back together. On the heels of Friday’s announcement that Elijah Wood will play Frodo Baggins in director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit, EW has confirmed that Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis will each reprise their roles from the Lord of the Rings films as, respectively, the wizard Gandalf the Grey and the creature Gollum.

Both actors had long been assumed by fans to be on board the production, though the unexplained delay in their official casting created some doubts. Both characters are critically important to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit tale; Gandalf recruits the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) to join a quest to reclaim a dragon’s treasure, and Gollum possesses a powerful ring that comes to play a central role in both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy