‘The Hobbit’ trailer generates massive online buzz

The release of an official trailer to Peter Jackson’s long-awaited return to Middle Earth has caused enough online buzz to briefly become a trending topic of Twitter.

Ian Mckellan, who will reprise his role as Gandalf in the movie, had his tweet linking to the trailer, retweeted hundreds of times:

The Hobbit follows the story of Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s erstwhile uncle and the first Baggins to go adventuring. The story sets up much of the background and mythology for the Lord of The Rings trilogy.

The movie will be a two-part adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s book of the same name, with Martin Freeman in the lead role. The actor has previously had roles as the shy porn star in Love Actually, Arthur Dent in the Hitchiker’s Guide to Galaxy and Dr Watson in the BBC’s contemporary adaptions of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories Sherlock.

The view counter on the YouTube upload of the trailer appears to be broken. At the time of writing it was stuck on 309 views. The video’s 11 000 plus likes and 3 500 odd comments suggest that it is getting a lot more traction.

The Hobbit is set to land in theatres come December 2012, so fans will have to satisfy themselves with the trailer for now.