Peter Jackson Makes The Hobbit a Trilogy

[Jeremy Wilkinson]

Peter Jackson Makes The Hobbit a Trilogy

The Lord of the Rings director's got something in his pocketses for the tale of Bilbo Baggins.

Peter Jackson, the director of the upcoming film adaptation of The Hobbit, has announced that the originally-planned pair of films are to become a trilogy in his take on the saga.

"It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made," Jackson said in a Facebook note. "Recently [screenwriters] Fran, Phil and I did this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie - and a large chunk of the second." The team was happy with the way the story was coming together, and believed that the best way forward was to extend the film and include as many of the tale's extended details as possible.

Tom Bombadil had to be cut from the Lord of the Rings trilogy due to time constraints, and this is a situation Jackson apparently does not want to repeat with The Hobbit. He asserts that "much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance." The films could contain a fuller description of the rise and fall of Sauron prior to the events of The Hobbit, extending on the prologue from The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Jackson is planning on drawing even more from the wealth of Professor Tolkien's extended writings, too. "The richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some of the related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, allows us to tell the full story of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins," he said. The post ends with a simple quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, saying that as with the author's original saga surrounding the Ring, this will continue to be "a tale that grew in the telling."

The first part of the Hobbit trilogy will appear in cinemas on December 14.

Source: Peter Jackson's Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-jackson/an-unexpected-journey/10151114596546558]

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[Toasty Virus]

So long as it doesn't just end up looking like he chopped the second one in two, I have no problem with this.

 

[Spacewolf]

Sounds like they will be showing abit of the war in the iron mountians as well, should be interesting

 

[Scarim Coral]

So I guess this is one of the few films adaption from the book/ novel that will be 100% straight from the book? Well as long no one complain about the whole not 100% accurate than fine by me.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Two movies I could understand, but three? Really Jackson?

 

[Bazaalmon]

Potentially the greatest cinematic achievement in history, a series of movies with absolutely NOTHING cut out from the book for time! *flameshield up!*
I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Trishbot]

Of course, the fact a third movie would exist, and make several millions more dollars, probably had a hand in it.

 

[Talvrae]

I feel therre will be lot of padding and walking

 

[IRBaboon]

I said this already in the other thread:

Spoiler

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Look, I know there's a lot of backstory in the appendices. That still doesn't change the fact that you're making three films out of one children's book. This isn't like LOTR where the books are so dense that lots of stuff had to be cut out to make the films. The Hobbit is by and large a pretty breezy book. A good director would be able to get one film out of it. How the fuck are they going to get three films out of it when they've already said that Part 1 will end with the Barrel sequence? Are they going to have two whole films of the Dwarves mooching round the mountain?

I can guess why this is being done: New Line figured they'd make more money if they spun this into a new trilogy, rather than a simply two parter. And I can already guess how they're going to pad it out. The Battle Of Five Armies, instead of being a brief, tragic finale to the story, is going to be dragged out into an 'epic' battle that dominates all of Part 3, with PJ adding his trademark ludicrous stunts and action sequences that undermine the tragedy of the source material. Which means most of Part 2 is just going to be bumming around Laketown and not much else.

Seriously, if the source material were larger, I'd be less hesitant. But it's not, it's a novel shorter than the Fellowship of the Ring. Not only that, but this is a massive change in production considering that Part 1 is only a few months away. Changing the game this late almost never works, and results in bloated, unfocused stories that lose direction and amble around for too long.

And to think Guillermo Del Toro was once on board to direct this. Jesus wept...

Peter Jackson is one of those directors on par with Spielberg and Cameron. He can decide what he wants to do with a movie and just straight up ignore the studios advice, I imagine that he's doing this not because they told him to but because he saw his own footage and though "Shit I can't get this into 2 films"

 

[NLS]

Well, on the other hand, it means you won't have to sit through 2 movies at 4,5 hours each after they release the extended cut. With all 3 movies they won't have to make extended cuts of all 3 movies, and even if they do, they will be watchable instead of how ridiculously long the LOTR extended cuts were.

 

[Eruanno]

Sooo... there will be a lot of dwarves singing and camping out in the forest, I presume?

 

[Goofguy]

I already commented on this in an other thread but it's a bit much in my opinion. The Battle of Dol Guldur was relatively untold in the book, anyway. The purpose and outcome were mentioned but we never saw the battle... and it's being added to this trilogy unnecessarily? Come on, Peter.

My interest in the movie sticking close to the source material outweighs my desire for added and expanded content, even of the fighting and battle variety.

 

[ritchards]

And then PJ will go back and make the LOTR into the 12 movie epic you need to tell that book?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Cool. The constant warfare from Northern Middle Earth always fascinated me. So much was focused on the south that the threats against the Iron Hills and Erebor seemed like an afterthought.

 

[Craazhy]

Normally I would suspect this to be a ploy to make more money off of divided instances of movie ticket purchases and merchandizing periods, but I'm going to give Peter Jackson the benefit of the doubt. Now of course this does not mean that the people paying Mr. Jackson didn't have less-than-desirable motives, but I trust that Mr. Jackson is truly taking this opportunity to really put a novel on the silver screen. I wish him good luck.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Two movies I could understand, but three? Really Jackson?

The third movie is just going to be one long ending.