The cover of the new issue of Entertainment Weekly reminds us that An Unexpected Journey, the first of the two Hobbit movies, will land  in theaters on December 14.

Why the early attention? It’s a lead-in to the upcoming Comic-Con (July 12-15 in San Diego), where it will be previewed.

EW notes there will be changes from the book,

To expand the classic J.R.R. Tolkien book so that it could support two feature films, Jackson drew from a range of Tolkien’s writings, adding characters not present in the Hobbit book, including Orlando Bloom’s elf Legolas and Cate Blachett’s elven rule Galadriel.

‘In the movie we want these characters to have story lines and a little more substance than they do in the book,’ Jackson explains. ‘Almost everything we’re doing is from Tolkien somewhere, whether it’s in the book or the subsequent development that wasn’t published in The Hobbit itself.’

That’s the first time we’ve heard that a book didn’t have enough substance for the movies.

Official Movie Web Site: TheHobbit.com

The tie-in is being published in September.

The Hobbit (Movie Tie-In) J.R.R. Tolkien Retail Price: $13.95 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: HMH/Mariner Books – (2012-09-18) ISBN / EAN: 0547844972 / 9780547844978

HMH/Mariner also lists a behind-the-scenes book for young readers.

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