The second most expensive film ever is “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”. Its production reached the spectacular amount of $315 million.

The Hobbit has undoubtedly been an extremely blockbuster movie, since it only took them 133 days since its launch to raise $303 million nationwide and $714 million internationally.

The movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is a 2002 UK film, which was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and distributed by Warner Bros Pictures. Specifically, “An Unexpected Journey” is the first part of the saga in which the novel “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien is divided into. After the success of The Lord of the Rings (filmed in 2001, 2002 and 2003), they started filming The Hobbit, with Guillermo del Toro in the lead. Some of the actors in this film are: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage and Cate Blanchett.

In addition, it is also plenty of curiosities: It’s the first movie ever to be shot in 48 frames per second and at 5K resolution. Besides, it is also known for its long duration. To grasp a general idea, the first scene recorded, which is the fight between Bilbo and Gollum, took 10 days to be filmed and needed 12 pages to be covered in the original book. Nonetheless, on the screen it only takes up to 10 minutes. One drawback they had while recording was that Martin Freeman, main actor playing Bilbo Baggins, committed to the “Sherlock” television series before they started working in the movie. However, the director was so determined that he was the one that he stopped recording for two months to wait for Freeman to finish with “Sherlock”.

On the other hand, the dwarves were not so easy to be got, as they needed 3 hours of makeup and heavy uncomfortable costumes. Moreover, Frodo Baggins was 19 when the first movie of the "The Lord of the Rings" came out. 10 years later, they started recording The Hobbit, but the original story is set decades before “The Lord of the Rings”, meaning that they were forced to smooth his wrinkles and signs of age so Frodo looked younger than in the previous films. Interestingly, the characterisation of the dragon Smaug required them to buy all the golden paint they could find in New Zealand. In fact, it was not enough and they had to order more in Germany. Finally, dwarfs’ wigs were all made from natural hair and some of them reached the price of $10,000.

The film was firstly initiated in March 21, 2011, but it was not released worldwide until December 13, 2013. “The Hobbit” has two editions: One of 169 minutes and the extended version of 182 minutes. As discussed above, “The Hobbit” originally happened ten years before "The Lord of the Rings". The story starts when the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s uncle, is visited by Gandalf and 13 dwarves. Then, they go through many adventures while they search a stolen treasure by the dragon Smaug in the Lonely Mountain. Once in the depths of the Earth, is the Ring which will be the main objective of bloody battles in Middle-earth, and main script of the following films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit:_An_Unexpected_Journey

http://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film172611.html

http://wwws.warnerbros.es/thehobbitpart1/dvd/#content=about

http://www.abandomoviez.net/db/curioso.php?film=8734

http://quo.mx/noticias/2012/12/15/12-curiosidades-de-la-pelicula-el-hobbit

http://www.sensacine.com/especiales/cine/especial-18500798/