[Kath]

I would love for the film to open with Bilbo smoking outside his front door. The first line of TH is so iconic so I'd like it to start with that.

That said, I actually think the idea of starting it with Gollum losing the Ring is good, except of course that he doesn't know that he's lost it yet. However, as they're going to have to match what happens in this film to what happened in FotR they may be able to work around this. For example, Gollum discovers that he's lost his Ring, Bilbo picks it up, Gollum leaves his island to come look for it and finds Bilbo instead who is carrying Sting and therefore has some leverage over Gollum. So it could be possible, though even so I'd rather it start quietly in the Shire.