I don't think he'd want to be too far from WETA studios anyways.

Cool, Belladonna. I think the common consensus so far is that New Zealand should be the way to go. Does anybody have any ideas on the Lonely Mountain? Should it just be inserted with CGI, or does such a thing exist anywhere on this planet? Perhaps a volcano somewhere? I suppose its actually five peaks and one mega peak.

As a New Zealander, I of course would love The Hobbit to be filmed in NZ. PJ was in Pennysylvannia because the book, 'The Lovely Bones', was set in Pensylvannia and he needed shots to make the film fit the book. He's back in NZ now and will be filiming in Wellington next year. We have many lakes (over 3800 that are larger than 1 hectare in size). Lake Taupo is the largest (about 600 square kms) and it's close to Mt Ruapehu where much of LOTR was filmed. Lake Te Anau would be next (about 350 sq kms) and they visited that area for LOTR. Lake Wakitipu in Queenstown is the next in size (about 300 sq kms) and they filmed in that area a lot. So I don't think that Laketown would be a problem.

i would say NZ aswell for most of it, but i guess laketown and dale would have to be filmed somewhere else as laketown requires a quite big lake, or maybe not with the correct angels(?)

Only NZ, the most beautiful place on earth! and they would have to revisit some locations.

There is only one place that it could be filmed in and that would be New Zealand. My reason for saying this is that it has all the locations needed and I seriously cannot see Peter shooting anyway else as he has probaly been thinking about the shooting locations for a long time. He may have been in the States due to the fact that they were sorting out the legalalities from the LOTR films and needed to be there at the time. Vote NZ for filming.

I've always thought that Oregon would be the perfect place to film The Hobbit.

Switzerland wouldn't work for a lot of it, unfortunately. The flatlands, rolling hill, and lower montaine parts of it are pretty polluted (i.e. not much in the way of actual blue-colored skies). Getting above the pollution means pretty much above the tree line in the Alps, but I guess that could be used for part of the Misty Mountains?

Another thought: the Pacific Northwest, specifically the Olympic Peninsula for Mirkwood. Of course, NZ probably has someplace like it ...

I used to drive several times each year from Michigan to NY CITy and was blown away by the sheer beauty of Pennsylvania. Parts of it are simply amazing. I do remember it as typical eastern US style mountains - old, well worn and rather dirty unlike the stuff out west which seems so much more chiselled and rugged. But it was beautiful. And the Deleware Water Gap - that was beautiful also.

I dont think any place or country can come even close to NZ when it comes to capturing tolkiens world on film. The US certanly dont have it. IF we have to exclude NZ for some reason the best place would be norway or perhaps switzerland. But let`s hope it doesn`t come to that. Its not likely anyway i think.

NZ

Shoot, I'm rooting for anything outdoors. Lets hope the director PJ taps doesn't wanna pull a George Lucas stunt and film everything in front of a green screen.

I think that Hobbiton and the Misty Mountains need to be filmed in New Zealand, but Mirkwood could be shot just about anywhere. And Dale and the Lonely Mountain are entirely new locales. I always envisioned Dale as a sort of Swiss alps town. Also, does New Zealand have any lakes to film on? Laketown needs to be on a lake, after all. I suppose they could do it all CGI, but I'd rather they built at least a mock up in real life.

I guess there is many lovely place to shoot, but NZ is really the perfect spot. Every landscape is so wonderful.

It has to get filmed in nz doesn't it? It's the only place...

I read somewhere (don't yell at me - I'm not presenting this as fact!) that PJ was running out of NZ locals who were willing to be extras by the end of the movie. Will we all have to fly to NZ and get walk-on parts? I'll have to read the book again and see what role one of the "big people" can play. I guess I could be a troll

There's nowhere in the world like New Zealand..

No. The LOTR sites in NZ have been pretty much preserved, and I just can't see P shooting this outside of NZ.

I read an article a few years ago that Jackson would never want to shoot outside of NZ, i guess he grew out of that. Lovely Bones sounds like a revisit to the Heavenly Creature's realm of cinema in which case i'm sure it'll be amazing.

I have some catching up to do then!

I have to agree with Magoleth and those who say NZ.