The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Achieves Highest Billboard Chart Debut in Franchise Soundtrack History

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WaterTower Music has announced this morning that the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack has achieved unprecedented chart success on this week’s Billboard Charts. Entering at #30 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is now the highest charting debut of all four of filmmaker Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptations of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, including The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and is the top-selling motion picture soundtrack in the country this week. The film, a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM), opened nationwide on Friday, December 14, 2012.

“Being that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the first of the soundtracks of this film series released through WaterTower Music, we’re especially pleased that the album has achieved the highest chart debut in franchise history.”

“WaterTower music is honored to release the music of this tremendous franchise” stated WaterTower label head Jason Linn. “Being that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the first of the soundtracks of this film series released through WaterTower Music, we’re especially pleased that the album has achieved the highest chart debut in franchise history.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is available both digitally and as a 2 CD set. A Special Edition of the soundtrack, featuring six exclusive bonus tracks, seven extended score cues, and deluxe liner notes is also available. The soundtrack features original score by Academy Award^® winner Howard Shore, recorded at famed Abbey Road studios by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Additionally, it includes an original song entitled “Song of the Lonely Mountain,” performed by Neil Finn (Crowded House). The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of a trilogy of films from Oscar^®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) based on the timeless novel by J.R.R. Tolkien.

One of today’s most respected, honored, and active composers and music conductors, Howard Shore, who composed, conducted, and orchestrated the music on the soundtrack for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and who also worked with director Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, states “I have looked forward to returning to the imaginative world of Middle-earth for quite a while. I’ve read all of the books by Tolkien, including The Hobbit, and his deep love of nature and all things green resonates deeply with me.”

Shore’s music for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy stands among his most towering achievements to date. He won three Academy Awards^® for his music for those films, two for Best Original Score, and one for Best Original Song. Shore has also won numerous other honors for his film work, including four Grammys and three Golden Globe Awards.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is available on WaterTower Music in the United States and Decca Records outside the United States.

About The Hobbit Trilogy

From Academy Award^®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM). It is the first of a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The three films tell a continuous story set in Middle-earth 60 years before The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar^®-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

The screenplay for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro. Jackson is also producing the film, together with Carolynne Cunningham, Zane Weiner and Fran Walsh. The executive producers are Alan Horn, Toby Emmerich, Ken Kamins and Carolyn Blackwood, with Boyens and Eileen Moran serving as co-producers.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the second and third films of the trilogy are productions of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, with New Line managing production. Warner Bros. Pictures is handling worldwide theatrical distribution, with select international territories as well as all international television distribution being handled by MGM.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 3D and IMAX 3D was released on December 14, 2012, with the second film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, to be released December 13, 2013, and the third film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, slated for July 18, 2014.