{"id":15644,"date":"2012-02-09T16:25:01","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T00:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/?p=15644"},"modified":"2012-02-10T16:31:08","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T00:31:08","slug":"billy-connolly-joins-the-cast-of-the-hobbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/?p=15644","title":{"rendered":"Billy Connolly Joins the Cast of The Hobbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wetanz.com\/billy-conolly-joins-the-hobbit-cast?utm_source=Weta+News&amp;utm_campaign=8efcc7a2c2-WetaNews_10Feb_2012&amp;utm_medium=email\">WETA<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Billy Connolly is joining the cast of Tolkien&#8217;s epic<em>The Hobbit<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement was made today by Peter Jackson, who is currently in production on &#8220;<em>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey<\/em>&#8221; and &#8220;<em>The Hobbit: There and Back Again<\/em>,&#8221; with the films shooting back-to-back in New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>In the films, Connolly (&#8220;<em>The Last Samurai<\/em>,&#8221; &#8220;<em>Lemony Snicket&#8217;s A Series of Unfortunate Events<\/em>&#8220;) will play Dain Ironfoot, a great dwarf warrior and cousin of Thorin Oakenshield. Peter Jackson welcomed the news of Connolly to Middle-earth: &#8220;We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the staunchest and toughest of Dwarves, than Billy Connolly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of &#8220;<em>The Hobbit<\/em>&#8221; is now complete.<\/p>\n<p>We can&#8217;t wait to see him on the Battlefield!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From WETA: Billy Connolly is joining the cast of Tolkien&#8217;s epicThe Hobbit. The announcement was made today by Peter Jackson, who is currently in production on &#8220;The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey&#8221; and &#8220;The Hobbit: There and Back Again,&#8221; with the films shooting back-to-back in New Zealand. In the films, Connolly (&#8220;The Last Samurai,&#8221; &#8220;Lemony Snicket&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/?p=15644\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Billy Connolly Joins the Cast of The Hobbit&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-arts-culture","category-books-writing","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/uberscifigeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}