According to Peter Jackson’s announcement on MTV, in addition to the character of Gandalf, two other characters will be featured in The Hobbit.
Casting began this week, and Jackson, who is The Hobbit‘s executive producer and co-author, along with director Guillermo del Toro, are searching for the right stars for various roles. Gandalf will again be played by Ian McKellen.
Amidst rumours regarding which characters will be featured in the new film, Jackson spoke about two Lord of the Rings characters that he wants to bring back to the silver screen.
"Gandalf, being a 2,000-year-old wizard, is still around and plays a major role in ‘The Hobbit,’ and we’re having Ian McKellen reprise. There’s a couple of other characters: Elrond, who was played by Hugo Weaving [in the original films], and there’s a possibility of Galadriel, who was played by Cate Blanchett," revealed Jackson.
For the first of the two planned Hobbit films, based on the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, a few Lord of the Rings characters will be back. However, for the second film that is planned for a 2012 release, we will see a link between The Hobbit and the middle-earth trilogy. Hopefully, the original stars will return to their roles, but nothing has been confirmed.