With beady yellow eyes and jaws pulled into a devilish grin, Smaug, a reptilian dragon from the Hobbit films, stared down from the side of Air New Zealand’s Boeing 777-300 jetliner Monday.

Airline officials, Warner Bros. officials and fans crowded excitedly around the red carpet as the plane pulled into sight at Los Angeles International Airport. This was the U.S. debut of the giant creature’s likeness in its entirety, just hours before the premiere of the “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

“What we’re seeing is people who are big fans of New Zealand are much more interested in coming quicker to visit our country once they’ve seen the Hobbit movies,” said Christopher Luxon, CEO of Air New Zealand. “They really want to participate and have an experience in Middle Earth.”

The decal of the dragon is 177 feet long in full color and took Weta Digital, a visual effects company based in New Zealand, 430 hours to complete.

“There are some things in movies that are sort of mechanical, and sort of cold and calculated, but something like this is just simply cool,” said Hobbit director Peter Jackson, who greeted the decorated jetliner Monday at LAX. “A dragon on a plane? Fantastic!”

Not only is the plane promoting the second installment of “The Hobbit” trilogy, which hits theaters on Dec. 13, but it also promotes New Zealand, said Chris Tremain, associate tourism minister for the island nation.

“Since we’re such a small country, we can embrace these things and it becomes more than just a movie for us,” Tremain said. “We’re not just about sheep and beef and wool. We’re quite an (information and communications technology) savvy country, so these sorts of opportunities like Lord of the Rings movies, like the Hobbit movies help to demonstrate that. It’s about branding New Zealand and about what kind of country we are.”

For fans of author J.R.R. Tolkien, the story of Smaug became even more real after the full-body image of the dragon grinned at them from the sides of the plane. They also met two actors who played dwarves in the series.

“It was amazing,” said Alex Rice, a member of TheOneRing.com, an online community of Tolkien fans. “I was so mind-blown. My face hurts from smiling. It’s pretty much my dream to ride on this thing to New Zealand. I’m saving every penny.”

Other fans were impressed by the amount of time and effort put into the dragon.

“It’s really exciting to hear about the man-hours and the hard labor that goes into something that looks so effortless, but as they explained, it took those boys days and days to do this,” said Clifford Broadway, another member of TheOneRing.com. “The biggest surprise to me is that they’re revealing this image of the dragon that has been so carefully protected for so long. It’s beautifully realized. I’ve been waiting two years to see this reveal.”

This is the second plane in Air New Zealand’s fleet featuring Hobbit-related decorations. The first coincided with the release of the first movie in the trilogy.