A buddy of mine, currently in the air on his way back to NY from London, may be scared to look out his window today. Air New Zealand has revealed that they’ve decked out their Boeing B777-300s with giant artwork depicting the evil dragon, Smaug- the antagonist for this month’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

The video uses time-lapse editing to show how the plane was converted into a flying billboard for Peter Jackson’s next epic, based on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The character of Smaug will be played, both through voice and motion-capture, by British thesp Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch is quite accustomed to working with Martin Freeman, who plays the central character of Bilbo Baggins, since the two co-star in BBC’s very successful series, Sherlock.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug comes to theaters on December 13. It is the second in a new Tolkien trilogy, with the final entry- The Hobbit: There and Back Again– arriving next year on December 17.

SOURCE: Air New Zealand