Hobbits take over Madrid subway

Passengers picking up a map of the Madrid Metro this week might be forgiven for thinking they took the wrong line and ended up in Middle Earth.

Bilbo Baggins, Gollum, Gandalf and other characters from the new movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in director Peter Jackson’s three-part adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s prequel to his Lord of the Rings saga, have barged their way onto the plan of the capital’s subway system as part of a promotional campaign.

The Madrid regional government has not revealed how much it received from Warner Bros. for lending the movie distributor its name and installations, so as not to set the price for future campaigns. But it did point out that as well as receiving the fee, it would also save on the cost of printing the 30,000 metro maps published by the studio, which will be handed out in the Sol and Callao metro stations in downtown Madrid.

Hobbit tracks

Characters from this new entry in The Lord of the Rings saga, which will be released in Spanish movie theaters on December 14, will also appear in several stations.

Entrances, corridors, platforms and staircases have been decorated in Gran Vía metro station, where the floors have also been adorned with 600 hobbit tracks.

The trailer for the film is also being shown on metro network TV screens and there will be a draw for tickets to the film’s premiere.