Big Mac just pointed these out to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2m2x8qJ ... r_embedded

And:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/fullcredits#cast

The cast is better than I could have hoped for!

-Havard

I still don't get why there has to be two movies, but maybe that is just me.................

Actually, I like the idea of a tie-in to the movie trilogy, which explains some of the exra time.

- It looks like the Necromancer of Mirkwood will be added to the script somehow, and how the White Council drove him out,
which promises more epic battles, and more, well, more of everything.

Don't be mistaken, for all that is known so far, this will be just as truthful to the books as any video game.

However, better have Peter Jackson do this than anybody else. Should be fun.

Also, while Christopher Tolkien is still managing the Tolkien estate, we can expect some level of respect to the overall work.
The level of sellout that will come once his great-grandsons take over will top anything that we have seen so far.

In that respect, there has been talk about a Silmarilion/Children of Hurin movies for a while now. Maybe that's on the horizon, too.