LEGO's Next Precious: LEGO Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit

[jonutah]

A few set ideas for The Hobbit:

1. Bilbo's Hobbit Hole
2. The Unexpected Party
3. The Shire
4. Stone Troll Capture
5. Barrel Escape
6. Smaug
7. Gollum's Cave
8. Lake Town

[madLEGOman]

From Bricks to Bag End... or From Bricks to Bagginses. really glad they're making the new hobbit movies if for nothing else but to give lego an excuse to go back to the license after mega bloks did such a horrible job during the original releases

[Andi]

can't wait and look forward so much :-)
I'm hoping for this since my Dark Age ended

[Draykov]

I'm in the same camp as cas. At the very least, we're sure to get a score of cool new figs.

I did note that the article in Variety specifically says:

Warner Bros. Consumer Products has awarded the toymaker the rights to create action figures and playsets based on "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and the two upcoming films based on "The Hobbit," the first of which bows at the end of 2012.

Hopefully this means that LEGO won't be faced with a lot of restrictions if they opt to release minifigs only in some capacity.

[cas]

Hopefully it doesn't mean will see sets similar to hero factory and the super heroes figure sets. It would be awesome if we got something similar to the new ninjago figure packs or collectable minifigs.

[ninnymuggins]

Hmmm more Elves, Trolls, and Dwarfs, bring it!

[lividus]

Oh man. I'm screwed - between this, Heroes and SW, I won't have a paycheque.

[legomason]

Legolas indeed.

[onions]

i'm gonna guess the 'action figures' are the hero factory / constraction figures.

[ablake90]

Hey guys im brand new here, been visiting the site since i got back into lego 6 months ago, had to join.
I'm so excited for this new license! If they do give us the trilogy sets im hoping to build an uruk hai army to me they are to LOTR what stormtroopers are to star wars. I wonder if they will try to give us a Balrog or even more ambitious a Mumak?

[Marty]

This is along time coming but hopefully worth the wait.
I would also hope Lego puts forward a competition or asks for buyers input on these sets as it's such a good theme it would be a shame to muck it up?
Finally, I'd be interested to see what the one ring would be like.

My precious......

The figures would be worth the wait.

[GroudonMan]

Hey everyone, it looks like the first wave has been leaked! Put in spoilers just 'cause.

Spoiler: show

Now that it is official here are the sets I know about:

9469 Gandalf Arrives
9470 Shelob Attacks
9471 Uruk-hai Army
9472 Attack on Weathertop
9473 The Mines of Moria
9474 The Battle of Helm's Deep
9476 The Orc Forge

Enjoy

Very much looking forward to these, gives a good idea of what minifigs will be available.

[lostone]

I take it back, someone at lego does listen.
I always hoped for this to be a theme, now just have to keep wishing for them to do startrek.

[shoggoth666]

This is most welcome news indeed! Great news for collectors and Lego will generate some serious profit on this line, I'm starting to save up now!

[DemoGoblin]

Only drawback is the One Ring will have to be as big as in the picture, doughnut sized!

[JD4M]

from bricks to bilbo duh...

though seeing as to how the themes will be going away, i have no idea how that's ever going to see the light of day.

Of course Bilbo!

The second movie hits theatres 2013, the announcement said "multi-year licensing deal," the first wave of sets barely scratches the surface of reasonable set possibilities and the first wave doesn't include Smaug. I'd count on LOTR sticking around.

[Ersh777]

OH YES!!! This is the best thing to happen to LEGO since Lego Star Wars came out! I will be a collector and a fan of these sets! I dreamed about this almost a decade ago when the LotR films came out...(was bummed some knock off building block company got the license at first)...now LotR Lego sets are going to be reality!

[onions]

from bricks to bilbo duh...

though seeing as to how the themes will be going away, i have no idea how that's ever going to see the light of day.

Of course Bilbo!

The second movie hits theatres 2013, the announcement said "multi-year licensing deal," the first wave of sets barely scratches the surface of reasonable set possibilities and the first wave doesn't include Smaug. I'd count on LOTR sticking around.

agree with you completely on the bolded part. the real question is how many waves of sets can we expect, how many sets per wave, and how many years is the license good for. if they plan on covering major scenes from the trilogy and at the same time release sets based the hobbit movies, there's a lot of ground to cover.

[shoggoth666]

This line could spawn some magnificent UCS models.

[ka.lego]

Yup, huge news. Many of us have been chattering about this for a while now over at EuroBricks, and it got a little hectic IMHO with people going back and forth about whether or not it would happen. Lo and behold...

Exciting stuff for many reasons. As a fan of Tolkien AND Jackson's films, I'm thrilled (and feeling vindicated...been rooting for a while). As an AFOL im excited for the new pieces and for what I'm hoping proves to be a win for the company. Seems like they could use a little dusting off after LEGO Universe which I remember them saying was their biggest single investment in a product. Ouch. Maybe licensing deals of popular franchises are a safer bet. I hope it works out, because I'm not entirely sure how PoP and PoTC did, and with HP lacking in future books or films to cross promote, they could use a new big licensed theme. Its not like LEGO's in danger of disappearing, but ive been around enough business people to imagine the pressure they must've been feeling. (Seems like theyve been kinda making all sorts of wild moves woth CUUSOO and that new social networking site.) Whatever...in the end it's huge news.

Check out that link to the EuroBricks forum thread for info about confirmed set titles and numbers.