First Trailer for ‘The Hobbit’ Brings Back Gandalf, Bilbo and the Rest of the Middle Earth Gang [VIDEO]

For a while there it looked like ‘The Hobbit’ wasn’t even going to get made, with the lawsuits and contract negotiations and all that. But it’s coming, and fans can now geek out over the first trailer for the next entry in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ saga.

If you thought there were a lot of hobbits in the first three films, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This one has over a dozen new characters culled from the J.R.R. Tolkien classic. The official synopsis says the movie “follows the title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug.” If that sentence makes sense to you, this trailer is definitely for you.

The movie doesn’t opens until next year’s holiday movie season (December 14, 2012), but the trailer features enough Gandalf action to tide you over. Check it out below.