Goddamnit Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson Confirms ‘The Hobbit’ Will Be Three Films

[Ns1]

Been a while since I've read the Hobbit, but I could see two movies certainly. Not sure three is necessary, but if they're as good as the original movies then I won't be one to complain.

And yea, Deathly Hallows absolutely needed two movies imo.

yeah I can see Hobbit in 2 movies, but Hobbit in 3 is a little ridiculous.

There is a lot more material in the movie than in the book. A lot of the sub plots will be fleshed out using material from The Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings books.

this is the only logical answer so far based on this thread, and a great one at that. I couldn't get through The Silmarillion.

 

[waggy]

the hobbit as 1 movie would not work having it at 2 was good. not sure how 3 will play out

with 2 splitting it at mirkwood really is perfect IMO

that would work. i just don't see 6 hours worth of a movie.

 

[Jadow]

lame, and I'll pass

Can't wrap my head around The Hobbit being as many movies as the entire LOTR.

Ok, dwarves come to his house, they go on a quest to get some dragon gold, some shenanigans ensue along the way, and back home again with the gold. Hobbit is a not very complicated child's book.

Now, I can understand why he's doing it, so he can maximize profits, that makes sense, and I can't fault him for that.

That being said, I'm not going to invest money into seeing them in the theater, I'll wait for redbox thank you.

 

[Genx87]

Some of these films are honestly better in a series to get the story laid out. I'd rather have it in a series than it be crushed into a single 2-3 hour film.

 

[alkemyst]

If his reasoning for why the Hobbit should be 3 movies, then why wasn't the LotR's like 9 movies??

Studio would allow it more than likely, now that they know they have ticket buyers they will authorize it.

With reading a book, your mind fills in the surroundings/details. With a movie they have to portray it.

 

[RPD]

I'd buy (his reasoning) it if it was 2 movies, but as already stated 3 movies seems like over kill.

 

[Fingolfin269]

This must be a lot more than The Hobbit if it's 3 separate films. That is not necessarily a bad thing either.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I just hope this one rakes in enough gazillions that we may be able to see some of the Silmarillion on screen. Fingolfin vs. Morgoth was epic and deserves at least 3 films. 🙂

 

[darkxshade]

He should just do 4 movies instead... it's the only way to be sure!

 

[Northern Lawn]

He makes good/great films so right on.

 

[Kalmah]

Tolkien glazed over a lot of detail in The Hobbit. For instance, the details of a war involving 5 races of armies was completely out of focus. Just that war itself could be its own movie. The river barrel escape part could last 2 hours of movie in itself as well.

Smaug better be badass.

 

[zinfamous]

I wish more movies stretched things out. They can flesh out the characters better, and it gives you something to look forward to.

with a book like the Hobbit, which has limited character development as it is (all of them wooden and unmaleable archetypes--like all of Tolkien's other work), there really is no need for it....unless, I suppose like with the LoTR movies, when making a film, one actually has to inject character development to make them viewable (as the books are more or less unreadable beyond a middle school level).


So, basically....I'm agreeing and disagreeing with you 😛. A film is better if it is focused and you can get your characters moving within ~2 hours, without extraneous flubbery. But the Hobbit (and Tolkien's work) is a special case, because it is so preposterously boring and undeveloped, that it probably does need that extra time to create engaging characters, where they never existed before. I think Jackson is great at this--as seen with the previous films.

That being said....the Hobbit? really. 😵

 

[Oyeve]

I am sure it will be 3 90 min movies instead of 2 2+hour movies, more showings, more movies, more $$$. What a douche.

 

[Ns1]

I am sure it will be 3 90 min movies instead of 2 2+hour movies, more showings, more movies, more $$$. What a douche.

am I the only one expecting three 2 hour and 45 minute movies, in Peter Jackson form?

 

[zinfamous]

There will be a lot more material in the movies than in the book. A lot of the sub plots will be fleshed out using material from The Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings books.

well, that would be awesome. It's the only decent piece of writing and storycrafting that Tolkien put out.

:thumbsup:

 

[zinfamous]

btw...I thought this was supposed to be out in the Fall? is it too late to be receiving these types of details?

...not that it would effect production or anything, but I assumed that details like this would simply be public at an earlier time.

:\

 

[lxskllr]

... (as the books are more or less unreadable beyond a middle school level).

Are the books really that bad? I haven't read them in over 30 years(probably around middle school :^D ), but I thought they were pretty good at the time. I always meant to re-read them, but never got around to it.

 

[Ns1]

btw...I thought this was supposed to be out in the Fall? is it too late to be receiving these types of details?

...not that it would effect production or anything, but I assumed that details like this would simply be public at an earlier time.

:\

he "just decided" this shit at ComicCon. Since only part 1 is being released in december, I guess parts 2/3 aren't affected.

 

[sactoking]

This must be a lot more than The Hobbit if it's 3 separate films. That is not necessarily a bad thing either.

Spoiler

(Nerd Hat on) In the Hobbit, Gandalf left the group for a while. Originally that was just him leaving, but once it was tied back to LOTR, the Silmarillion, and other stories it was determined that he left the group in Mirkwood to go south to Lothlorien. While there he joined up with Galadriel and Celeborn and others to assault the Necromancer in South Mirkwood. While there the learned that the Necromancer was actually Sauron reborn. It was a pretty big battle that ultimately led to Gandalf sending Aragorn and Legolas to look for Gollum in Mirkwood and Sauron finding him first, which triggered the LOTR story.(Nerd Hat off)

 

[Fingolfin269]

I am sure it will be 3 90 min movies instead of 2 2+hour movies, more showings, more movies, more $$$. What a douche.

I am sure this is wrong. I'll bet all will be at least 2:15 - 2:45. In other words, just about the right amount of time to sit in a theater.

 

[Ns1]

Spoiler

(Nerd Hat on) In the Hobbit, Gandalf left the group for a while. Originally that was just him leaving, but once it was tied back to LOTR, the Silmarillion, and other stories it was determined that he left the group in Mirkwood to go south to Lothlorien. While there he joined up with Galadriel and Celeborn and others to assault the Necromancer in South Mirkwood. While there the learned that the Necromancer was actually Sauron reborn. It was a pretty big battle that ultimately led to Gandalf sending Aragorn and Legolas to look for Gollum in Mirkwood and Sauron finding him first, which triggered the LOTR story.(Nerd Hat off)

new pic of sactoking

 

[sactoking]

I just hope this one rakes in enough gazillions that we may be able to see some of the Silmarillion on screen. Fingolfin vs. Morgoth was epic and deserves at least 3 films. 🙂

Likely won't happen. Saul Zaentz owns the media rights to Hobbit and LOTR but the Tolkien Trust owns everything else. The Trust has basically said that they will never option out the media rights (other than book publishing) to any of the other material.

 

[sactoking]

new pic of sactoking

Ha, nice!

In my defense I have only read the books once, but I have a very good memory for stupid details. I'd say I'm more like Cliff Claven (though I try not to just make stuff up).

 

[zinfamous]

Are the books really that bad? I haven't read them in over 30 years(probably around middle school :^D ), but I thought they were pretty good at the time. I always meant to re-read them, but never got around to it.

It's a whole bunch of "Lo! I will run off to smite my foe!" and other middling, pedestrian fluff.

The characters are boring as fuck. Aragorn will always be king, he knows it, and he has no doubts. He has no fear of himself; he's just "I'm king! accept it, bitch!" as soon as you meet him.

Basically, the books suck because no one should give a shit about these characters as written. Jackson made them real characters.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I was skeptical at first, but now that I think about it more, I am okay with this. A TON of stuff goes on behind the scenes in the Hobbit. But the book is written from Bilbo's perspective and he really didn't fully understand all of what was going on at first. Neither did Tolkein; I know he revised the Hobbit later to make more sense as he was writing The Lord of the Rings. In the original version, when Bilbo and Gollum were playing the riddle game, Gollum willingly bet his magic ring, which would not make sense in the context of LotR, so he changed it to Bilbo finding it and basically stealing it from Gollum.

Gandalf went off and did a bunch of stuff that wasn't explicitly mentioned in the book. He met with the other wizards and the elves, attacked Dol Guldur, and drove Sauron ("The Necromancer" as he was called in the book) away to Mordor.

Basically I think Jackson realizes that he'll only get so many opportunities to make movies based on Tolkein's material, and a Silmarillion movie is probably a long shot. So why not throw in as much backstory and side plots into The Hobbit as possible? I mean, the LotR movies came out 10 years ago, before the more recent trend of dragging film series out for 4, 5, 6, or even more movies. If he was making LotR today, who knows? He may have convinced the studio to go for 6 movies, 2 per book.