Warner Bros. marketing department may be working overtime promoting Man of Steel ahead of its arrival this Friday, but the studio hasn't forgotten about another of its big releases in the second instalment of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth prequel trilogy The Hobbit. After debuting the official poster for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug yesterday, the first trailer for the fantasy epic has now arrived online, and you can watch it below...The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug sees the return of a host of Tolkien veterans, including Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins), Ian McKellen (Gandalf the Grey), Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield), Andy Serkis (Gollum), Christopher Lee (Saruman the White), Sylvester McCoy (Radagast the Brown), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Necromancer / Smaug), Lee Pace (King Tranduil) and Orlando Bloom (Legolas), while newcomers to Middle-earth include the likes of Luke Evans (Fast & Furious 6) as Bard the Bowman, Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as Tauriel, Stephen Fry (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) as the Master of Laketown and Mikael Persbrandt (In a Better World) as Beorn.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is set for release on December 13th while the final instalment - The Hobbit: There and Back Again - will hit cinemas on December 17th, 2014.