PJ Confirms: ‘Hobbit’ Series Gets Third Film


Managing Editor
07/30/12 10:47am
14 Comments

There have been rumours swirling lately about the possibility of a third Hobbit film, with Peter Jackson being remarkably forthcoming at Comic Con about the situation, but stressing that nothing had been confirmed. Well, scratch that! Today Peter Jackson confirms what we’ve all been hoping for: there will indeed be a third Hobbit film. Read his statement below:

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. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie – and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.’

We know how 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 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 and the part he played in the sometimes dangerous, but at all times exciting, history of Middle-earth.

So, without further ado and on behalf of New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wingnut Films, and the entire cast and crew of “The Hobbit” films, I’d like to announce that two films will become three.

It has been an unexpected journey indeed, and in the words of Professor Tolkien himself, “a tale that grew in the telling.”

Given the fondness that Jackson has for extended editions, it makes sense that they would shoot a whole bunch of material that would not have normally made it into the theatrical cut. Perhaps, though, given the ridiculous success of the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Newline has decided that it would be a better idea to leave the material in and stretch the series out over an additional film. In any case, if there’s one director who can handle it, isn’t it Peter Jackson?

Tell us ALL OF YOUR FEELS in the comments!

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  • http://twitter.com/Leah617 Leah Cornish

    ALL THE FEELS! (I am so freaking pumped.)

  • http://twitter.com/Aresman71 Harry Potter

    …ok, I like The Hobbit, but am I the only one who thinks that this might be overdoing it a tad? Three full movies for one book?

    • http://twitter.com/BradAusrotas Brad Ausrotas

      Actually there’s approximately another book’s worth of information regarding The Hobbit and the surrounding events in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings and in Tolkien’s other writers. He did not leave things up to the readers (or director’s, as it were) imagination. Peter Jackson is not adding anything in that Tolkien did not already write about, whether it was included in the actual text of The Hobbit or not.

      • 19yearslater

        Did you read the Entertainment Weekly spread on The Hobbit? Jackson admits to filming scenes that are not from Tolkien.

        • Critterfur

          Well, sure, and he added stuff to LOTR, and the various Potter directors (even David Yates) added stuff to the Potter adaptations, and the 1939 adaptation of the Wizard of Oz combines the characters of the Witch of the North and the Witch of the South, leaves out large chunks of the original narrative, replaces silver slippers with ruby ones, adds in a whole subplot about Ms. Gulch and the Kansas farmhands (not in the original novel at all), and is considered by many to be an absolute classic. The novel is also considered a classic. Both fairly different versions of the same story, but good on their own terms. I can just imagine if Oz had been made today, with the reaction from the Internet gossip: “I heard they’re wasting a whole 20 minutes at the beginning of the film with some weird storyline about a bike-riding dog-hater and this weird Professor Marvel guy who tells fortunes and they made Dorothy 16 years old instead of 9 and it’s not like the book at all! Worst…Movie…Ever.”

          Adaptations always have (and always will) add and subtract; it’s just the nature of the beast. I understand your concerns (and don’t mean to poke fun), but I think this is just a case where I’m going to wait and see instead of getting all reactionary right away.

  • 19yearslater

    Not psyched. I think it ought to be one film, not three. This is making me think I might boycott seeing them at the cinema, two is silly but three is outlandish. From what I’ve read they took the time to add a bunch of stuff that isn’t from the book.

    • http://twitter.com/BradAusrotas Brad Ausrotas

      One film? Really? Have you ever read The Hobbit? It is quite a large novel, and quite a lot happens during it. Given that the trend in cinema these days is to try and make faithful adaptations, instead of wildly cutting down novels to fit into the 90 minute boring genre flick, two movies makes sense. This way they don’t have to cut anything out or modify the tale in anyway. Three movies is even better.

      You might not realize this, but Tolkien wrote thousands and thousands of pages on Middle Earth that never made it into his novels. There is an absolute treasure trove of information regarding the universe that all came straight from Tolkien’s brain. A deal of it concerns The Hobbit, the events around it, and other things happening behind the scenes that are only alluded to in the novel proper. As such, a big part of making The Hobbit such a large series involved tapping into this information.

      Peter Jackson, from the start, has not wanted the movie to be JUST about Bilbo. While he is the central character, there is plenty of other stuff going on in the novel, and like Lord of the Rings, the ‘party’ as it were is not always all in the same place at the same time. the dwarves get seperated, Gandalf has his own preoccupations, the men and elves and Beornings and Radagast all play their own roles. By using this information, which IS canon, to flesh out the movie and allow different perspectives besides Bilbo’s, Jackson does us a service, allowing the movie to become something much greater in the telling than Tolkien could have imagined.

      Remember that Tolkien wrote The Hobbit first only as a bedtime story for his children. It was hastily composed, rather careless in its first draft with borrowing details from his Middle Earth (with which it was not connected initially), and the tone was overall fairly silly. As he revised it, it changed and grew into the story that we knew today, but there was still plenty more that Tolkien added to it after it was published, and I’m positive that if Tolkien had lived longer, after publishing The Silmarillion himself his next undertaking would have been revising The Hobbit to more clearly meet the vision that he had created after the fact. Peter Jackson is essentially doing this for him, on a smaller scale.

      • 19yearslater

        Yes, I’ve read The Hobbit, I realize all of the additional material Tolkien wrote, etc., etc. But my opinion is generally that Order of the Phoenix was a better adaptation than Deathly Hallows, i.e. that directors go hog-wild with special effects and extra junk, still ignoring large portions of the plot when they get extra films. The Hobbit is not a large book. Yes, a lot happens in it, but not three films worth. The EW article was talking about love interests for the dwarves, additional fight scenes with the spiders, things that Tolkien never wrote (or intended, in the case of women, which were not supposed to be part of The Hobbit).

    • Critterfur

      As mentioned in one of these other posts, Tolkien wrote stuff that takes place during the time-frame of The Hobbit but wasn’t actually included in the book proper, but instead in the appendices of Return of the King (and in a number of other books). In those additional writings, Tolkien explained where Gandalf went off to during the times he disappeared from Bilbo, Thorin, and the other dwarves (which happens more than once during the story). A lot of what Gandalf was doing is hugely important and has deep links to the storyline of Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson obviously intends to make The Hobbit less of a children’s tale and more of a bridging plot to the events of LOTR, so that when all is said and done, a viewer could watch through the three Hobbit movies and the three LOTR movies and feel they had watched one seamless, massive story. We’ll have to see if he manages to pull it off, but I have faith he’s doing it for the right reasons (this is the same man who attempted to reduce the three parts of LOTR into two movies, but was then given the green light by New Line to go ahead and make three films instead; he’s shown that he’s willing to cut severe chunks out of the story if he has to).

  • Nicole

    So just to confirm, they are not doing any additional shooting, it’s just they have enough footage to make another film?

    • http://twitter.com/BradAusrotas Brad Ausrotas

      We’re not really sure, but I would imagine as much, yes. This way they can recut the film to include all of the shooting that would have either been discarded or only snuck into the extended editions.

    • Critterfur

      No, as far as I know they ARE doing additional shooting, which is why Jackson had to get the go ahead from the movie studio (for the extra funding, time and work that will now be required). I don’t quite understand how a third movie is going to fit into the broader picture. I assume that the two movies that had initially been planned will focus on most of the events of The Hobbit, and that a third film will potentially cover the period of time – 70 years or so – between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring (which might feature more about the young Aragorn and his relationship with Arwen, more about Saruman and his fall from grace, more about Gollum featuring out into the world to look for the One Ring, etc). I really have no idea; they obviously can’t fit the new footage into the first film (since it’s already being edited, scored, and prepared for release). It’s all very strange…

  • John Rutherford

    I’m so excited but at the same time, it’s kinda worrisome. Is he doing this just for the cash or is he doing this because he really thinks that the story can be told more effectively?

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