Finally the first trailer for Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” has been released. The long anticipated movie stars a host of Irish and Irish American stars including James Nesbitt (“Bloody Sunday”, “Waking Ned”) and Aidan Turner (“The Tudors”, “Being Human”).

The movie also stars Orlando Bloom reprising his role as Legolas, the elf, and “Lost’s” Evangeline Lilly will star as Tauriel.

The lead of Bilbo Baggins, the adventuring hobbit, is played by Martin Freeman (“The Office” UK, “Love Actually”).

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In the trailer we see Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellan) arrive at his door with a band of 13 dwarfs (James Nesbit and Aidan Turner among them). Gandalf tries to persuade Baggins to join them on adventure to Lonely Mountain to steal treasure from the dragon of Smaug. Although we don’t see Smaug in the clip we do get a glimpse of the horrid Smeagol / Gollum played by the brilliant (Andy Serkis).

It seems that this movie, based in the same universe as “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, is set to be just as much of a success and a cult classic as Peter Jackson’s past works.

However, it’s still a long way off. Its release date is set for 14th December 2012.

Here’s the trailer: