Home Entertainment Looks like The Hobbit is set to become a trilogy after all

Looks like The Hobbit is set to become a trilogy after all

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You know what makes more money than two highly anticipated upcoming films? Three of them, and even my terrible maths skills can see the logic in that.

Hobbit director Peter Jackson may have finally finished filming the two prequels to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it looks like he’s going to be getting the gang back together, as that thought he had about extending the two films, is possibly getting the greenlight.

According to THR, logistical talks surrounding that possibility have “accelerated” between the director, producers and Warner Bros, who are keen on doing so, although that will need some extra financing.

As one source explained to THR:

If we’re going to do it, we have to make a decision soon. It’s strongly driven by the filmmakers’ desire to tell more of the story.

Jackson happens to be one of those directors who likes to work with quite a bit of story, as anyone who has watched his extended cut Lord of the Rings DVDs can attest to, seeing as how such a feat normally leaves one with a beard that would rival Gandalf himself, after such a lengthy viewing.
Currently, The first prequel, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is scheduled for a December release this year, while the second, There and back again, will follow a year later. At this point, we’re guessing that the third film, Hang on guys, I dropped my pipe near Mordor, will keep the tradition alive with a 2014 release in December as well.

Talking to Deadline recently, Jackson explained how he could take a relatively short book, and expand it into multiple films;

…we haven’t just adapted The Hobbit; we’ve adapted that book plus great chunks of his appendices and woven it all together. The movie explains where Gandalf goes; the book never does. We’ve explained it using Tolkien’s own notes.

That helped inform the tone of the movie, because it allowed us to pull in material he wrote in The Lord of the Rings era and incorporate it with The Hobbit.

So we kept the charm and the whimsy of the fairy tale quality through the characters. Through the dwarves and Bilbo, who is more of a humorous character. He doesn’t try to be funny but we find him funny and find his predicament more amusing than that of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.

That was more serious. So the whimsy is there, but tonally I wanted to make it as similar to The Lord of the Rings, because I wanted it to be possible for the people, the crazy people in the world who want to watch these films back to back one day…

Three is starting to look like a magical number right now. My only fear though, is that the current films will get some chopping and re-editing in order to accommodate the trilogy aspects, possibly resulting in a less than stellar final product.

But then again, at least we’re getting more Tolkien, at the end of the day, and everyone wins with that idea. Plus, I’ll have more time to start saving up for the extended cut of this trilogy, for whatever future format it releases on.

Last Updated: July 25, 2012

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