A new TV spot for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug has been released - scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to watch.

The 30-second clip focuses on Evangeline Lilly's elf warrior Tauriel and also contains footage of Orlando Bloom's Legolas, who starred in the original Lord Of The Rings trilogy of films.

The Desolation Of Smaug is the second in director Peter Jackson's trilogy of The Hobbit adaptations. The story picks up where last year's An Unexpected Journey left off, as Bilbo Baggins, the dwarves and Gandalf trek across Middle Earth on a journey to the Lonely Mountain, where they hope to reclaim the dwarves' homeland from an unwelcome squatter, the dragon Smaug.

Comparing The Desolation Of Smaug to its predecessor, Jackson told Empire recently: "This has less humour in it for sure. The first film was where we allowed ourselves to try and capture something of the children's book, but it is really not appropriate to do that any more. Some pretty serious stuff is going down and it is important that we don't undercut that now."

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released in December last year and took over $1 billion (£670 million) at the box office worldwide. The Desolation Of Smaug will open in cinemas on December 13 this year (2013) before the trilogy concludes with There And Back Again in December 2014.