by Ethan Anderton October 22, 2014^[1]

Last fall, before The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hit theaters, some images surfaced of Benedict Cumberbatch doing motion-capture performance work to bring the dragon Smaug to life, complete with some wild-eyed facial expressions. Then earlier this year, a featurette showed off how Weta Digital helped turn that performance into what we see on the big screen. Now with the extended cut of The Desolation of Smaug arriving on Blu-Ray on November 4th, some new featurettes of Cumberbatch's awesome work have surfaced online, and it's absolutely fascinating to see the actor dig into this peculiar character. Watch now!^[2][3][4]

Featurettes on Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug from LA Times^[5], Warner Bros. UK^[6] & MMGN Australia^[7]:

See more of Benedict Cumberbatch in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December^[8].

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit... J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit^[9], being directed by Peter Jackson as three separate movies, is set in Middle-Earth 60 years before Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in a trilogy ten years ago. The films, with screenplays by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson, were shot consecutively in 48FPS 3D using the latest cameras. The Hobbit follows the journey of Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. The Battle of the Five Armies arrives in theaters in HFR, IMAX & 3D on December 17th^[10] later this year. It all ends in December - see you then.

Find more posts in Featurette, Hobbit, To Watch^[11][12][13]

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