THE HOBBIT - Ten New Photos Released!

Thanks to Entertainment Weekly we've got ten new photos from Peter Jackson's highly anticipated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit to share with you! Out of every movie coming out this year, this is at the top of my list for most anticipated, and I have to wait to the end of the freakin' year until I'm able to watch it! 

Thankfully there will be a panel for the film at Comic-Con this year to tide us over and keep us happy while we wait. I'm sure we'll end up seeing some more new footage from the film at the con, but I'm really interested in seeing it in the 48 frames per second format that is was shot in, so hopfully that's an option!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released beginning December 14, 2012. The second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is set for release the following year, on December 13, 2013. Check out the ten new pictures that gives us a look at some of our favorite characters in action! 

Reluctant hobbit hero Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) faces giant spiders and other perils in Mirkwood Forest. ''I don't think I'm particularly hobbit-y,'' says Freeman. ''But I do like comfort and I'm quite private, so in those ways, maybe I am.''

The wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) journeys to Hobbiton to help recruit Bilbo on a dangerous quest. ''Gandalf is still the same guy [he was in the Lord of the Rings trilogy],'' says McKellen. ''He's still got the same sense of humor and sense of urgency and concern — all those things that make him interesting.''

Dwarves Fili (Dean O'Gorman, far left), Kili (Aidan Turner), Dori (Mark Hadlow), and Nori (Jed Brophy) trek through mountainous terrain in Middle-Earth. ''This movie has been a great opportunity for all of us to get fit,'' says Hadlow.

Elrond (left), the ruler of Rivendell, played by Hugo Weaving, is one of a handful of characters from the Rings trilogy who appear in The Hobbit.

Cate Blanchett's ethereal elf Galadriel is one of the Rings characters not in The Hobbit book being incorporated into the movie. ''It will all make sense,'' director Peter Jackson promises Tolkien purists.

In one of the best-known sequences from the Hobbit book, the dwarves make a daring escape down a river in some barrels.

Andy Serkis, who returns as Gollum, found it relatively easy to slip back into the role nearly a decade after the Rings trilogy. ''He's never really been that far away from me,'' Serkis says. ''He's always been kind of lurking under my skin.''

Richard Armitage plays Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the company of dwarves, who is fiercely determined to reclaim the dwarves' kingdom. ''He has this vision of what he's going to do for his people.''

Here's the synopsis:

The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever…Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.