David Phelan dons a motion-capture suit to try to ape CGI superstar Andy Serkis

The former 'Lost' actress has signed on to play a new character, Tauriel, but director Sir Peter Jackson refused to give any further details about the woodland elf.

Thanks to all-round quality, McGovern's latest helping carried great emotional weight despite a shaky storyline

Just 5ft tall and a fan of The Lord of the Rings, Naz Humphreys believed she would make a perfect hobbit. So when the chance of a bit-part in Peter Jackson's new film project came up, she seized it. What she did not expect was to be told she was not white enough.

An influx of familiar faces into Middle Earth is expected after the announcement that filming of The Hobbit will finally begin next February, bringing to an end years of delays.

As any proper J R R Tolkein fan knows, it takes bravery, patience, and a little bit of luck to complete a journey to Middle Earth. Peter Jackson certainly boasts the first two, but judging by the fate of his long-running efforts to bring a film version of The Hobbit to the big screen, he's sadly lacking in the third.

It coasts along quite nicely

If you thought reading a JRR Tolkien novel was time-consuming, try turning one into a film. Two years and hundreds of painstakingly designed monster costumes after he started work on The Hobbit, the Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro has suddenly quit, complaining about endless delays in getting his eagerly-awaited film green-lit.

Charging mammoths and creeping ice caps – those were the days

Whatever else befalls it, Paul Andrew Williams' second feature will not win the critical adulation of his first, the magnificent, bleak London to Brighton.