Home Entertainment Is Peter Jackson making THE HOBBIT as a trilogy?

Is Peter Jackson making THE HOBBIT as a trilogy?

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It’s been pretty well documented that Peter Jackson will be adapting JRR Tolkien’s beloved The Hobbit into two films, despite the fact that the original text is – pardon the pun, Hobbits – a very short book. Jackson will be making use of the mountains of extra material that Tolkien created to flesh out some characters and story sequences.

But now Jackson is apparently asking Warner Bros to allow him to shoot even more scenes with even more extra material in 2013. Enough perhaps for a third film? 

While at Comic Con to present footage of the film, Jackson revealed his intent of adapting more material:

“We also have the rights to use this 125 pages of additional notes where Tolkien expanded the world of ‘The Hobbit’…Fran [Walsh] and I have been talking to the studio about other things we haven’t been able to shoot and seeing if we persuade them to do a few more weeks of shooting, probably more than a few weeks actually, next year. And what form that would actually end up taking, well the discussions are pretty early…”

“There’s other parts of the story that we’d like to tell that we haven’t been able to tell yet.”

As you can see, the final format of what this extra material may take is not a done deal yet. It may or may not actually be a third film, or possibly something along the lines of the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions, which were special Home Release versions of the films that expanded on the theatre versions’ narrative in a huge way. Either way it’s clear that this little story is certainly going to be given an epic film.

And as for the footage shown at Comic Con itself, like I reported last week, Jackson had decided to rather screen it this time in plain old 24fps in 2D, as opposed to the 48fps 3D version he demoed at CinemaCon earlier this year. So how did it all go down?

Well, unlike the mixed reactions at CinemaCon, the reception here was overwhelmingly positive with everybody praising what they saw. Hero Complex has a nice rundown of the 12 minutes of footage that was shown:

…Beginning with a scene in which Gandalf recruits a doubtful Bilbo to join a company of even-more-doubtful dwarves in their quest to stop the greedy and terrible dragon Smaug.

In another scene, Bilbo bargains with Smeagol in the cave, risking his life in a game of riddles: “If Baggins loses,” he croaks, “we eats it whole.” We also see Bilbo finding the One Ring and then later concealing it from Gandalf.

The footage also included a light-soaked scene between Gandalf and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), in which the elven queen asks the gray wizard why he picked Bilbo for this quest.

“Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check,” Gandalf says. “That is not what I’ve found. I found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I’m afraid, and he gives me courage.”

Part 1 of the new film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opens 14 December, 2012

Last Updated: July 16, 2012

3 Comments

  1. Let’s hope he’s just thinking ‘Extended Edition’ here. I don’t even know how on earth he’s dragging the Hobbit out into two films. Three would be ridiculous…

    Reply

    • Theunis Jansen Van Rensburg

      July 17, 2012 at 11:51

      I don’t know, I think two films could work quite nicely. There really is a lot of room to explore in the Tolkien universe, even diving into more mythology from the LOTR books. I’m optimistic. 😀

      Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      July 17, 2012 at 13:19

      That’s because for this, Jackson isn’t adapting The Hobbit. He’s adapting The Hobbit + Other Stuff That Tolkien Wrote That Wasn’t In Lord Of The Rings.

      Reply

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