I am totally psyched. For LOTR they had to cut so much out - now for this they actually get to bring extra stuff in. I love LOTR and I love what Peter Jackson has done to bring it to life - I'm with sharkenleo - lets let him do his thing. I'm just disappointed this will mean I have to sit in anticipation of /another/ movie.

http://teamcoco.com/content/how-peter-jackson-will-make-the-hobbit-a-trilogy

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-hobbit-three-summer-2014-20120730,0,2725549.story

Sounds like they will be pulling more material from the appendices to make three films. Could be awesome. I'm excited.

maybe we will get some of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs.

[This message has been edited by ja86 (edited 7/31/2012 11:10a).]

Definitely. Probably gonna show Balin's return to Khazad-Dum and the goblins basically wiping out the dwarf city.

They're now gonna be able to finish the story with a really smooth transition into LOTR, which I think will be awesome.

[This message has been edited by sharkenleo (edited 7/31/2012 12:27p).]

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http://teamcoco.com/content/how-peter-jackson-will-make-the-hobbit-a-trilogy

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"In the second installment of "The Hobbit," the wizard Saruman watches the first installment of "The Hobbit" in its entirety with his palantir seeing stone."

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New production diary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2W9nbId-HU

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I just watched this production diary for the firs time. Couple of things I noticed.

- I had completely missed that Billy Connoly was playing Dain. I wonder if Howard Hessman was originally going to play that role.

- There was a scene being show where the dwarves were floating in their barrels with the lids off. I can't figure out what circumstances would allow for that.

- There was scene of a forest on fire and one of the dwarves marching into it. The trees were all fallen down. Didn't seem to be the scene where the wargs and goblins have them all treed before the eagles save them.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/08/02/60244-the-bold-hobbit-trilogy-decision-and-what-to-expect-now/

Great article that does a good job of explaining why the decision for a third film was not based on money. Like the article says, I think it was a simple matter of having too much footage for two films and an unwillingness to cut stuff out. And that opened up a golden opportunity to include even more material from the appendices.

I don't think the decision will have a huge effect on film one. If anything, the cutoff point might be moved up to the company's capture in Mirkwood. The big plus here is instead of having an overly long and bloated film two, you get to not only keep everything, but fill in even more things during and after the events of The Hobbit, and split that over two films.

My educated guess would be that film two ends after Smaug attacks Laketown, and the White Council and Dol Goldur stuff taking place in that film. Then film three will be totally centered on the Battle of Five Armies, the aftermath, and an extended prologue with the years leading up to Fellowship.

The biggest change, in all likelihood, is that we'll get three 2+ hour films instead of two 3+ hour films.

Also, forgot to mention that the company that owns the rights has already registered the title The Desolation of Smaug. That will most likely be film two, with film three now being There and Back Again.

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and an extended prologue with the years leading up to Fellowship.

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That's not much of an ending though. The hobbit is a relatively small, and mostly self contained, story. One 150 min movie could have done the whole thing. 3 movies of that length? The appendices are cool (to nerds like me) but there isn't that much meat in them.

There is a TON of other Tolkien material, and it would make for awesome movies. But none of it comes between the Hobbit and LOTR.

So we've gone from one Hobbit movie, to two Hobbit movies with the second one being pre-LOTR stuff, to two just Hobbit movies with a lot of White council/necromancer stuff filled in, to THREE Hobbit movies containing all of the above. You know how King Kong was kind of awesome, but really really overworked and bloated? Starting to get that feeling here.

Bad news, the 48 fps version is only going to be shown in a few locations.

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just a handful of select locations and "perhaps not even all major cities"

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http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hobbits-gamechanging-3d-will-actually-only-cha,83532/

48 faps per second. Good lordy.

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none of it comes between the Hobbit and LOTR

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There's The Hunt for Gollum which is a 40-minute "fill-in" about the hunt for Gollum which supposedly happens between Hobbit and LOTR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H09xnhlCQU

There is also Born of Hope that is supposedly a Hobbit 'prequel' but I have only checked out the trailer and don't know much about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qINwCRM8acM. May have to crack open the Silmarillion and reread the Dunedain history...

If you do watch The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope, bear in mind that none of the participants are paid for their acting, producing, make-up, etc. which seems pretty impressive given the results. Also, I think that PJ may not be able to produce contents from any books other than LOTR and Hobbit since that is all he has paid/is licensed for by Tolkien's estate...



[This message has been edited by Arminius (edited 8/17/2012 3:26p).]

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The Hunt for Gollum

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I hadn't really considered that. It's sort of a throwaway in LOTR but Gandalf does mention that he (and Strider?) hunted down Gollum after he escaped from Mordor and interrogated him. I guess you could flesh that out into a pretty long segment, but there isn't much actual material to go off of. Plus I don't really get the point of spending 30ish minutes telling that story.

That's the whole problem with a bridge movie though. Because the source material is so thin, and the outcome is already known, you end up with storylines that aren't terribly interesting (outside of material for nerds like us to argue over) and have little suspense.

They should just make a Silmarillion or Lost Tales movie--of course that would mean getting the rights to those books, which just isn't going to happen.

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Because the source material is so thin, and the outcome is already known, you end up with storylines that aren't terribly interesting (outside of material for nerds like us to argue over) and have little suspense.

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That is one of the cool things about Tolkien/Middle Earth - he did not like to have a story simply reference background material without that reference, in and of itself, being a fleshed-out story. Hence, the Silmarillion. There is great potential there but PJ and the producers would need to get the rights after they determine whether the market would support further production/distribution after Hobbit.

The Eragon story line has/had great potential and Harry Potter is proof positive that if managed properly, you can get multiple movies out. Perhaps there is hope for additional Middle Earth movies...

My understanding (although I might be wrong) was that Christopher Tolkien retained the rights to all the other material. He was very much against the LOTR movies, so I don't see him licensing the other stuff.

In my limited googling it looks like he wasn't so much against the movies as he didn't think that it was a story that would translate all that well into film. It looks like it was his father's biographer who claimed that Tolkien would have hated the movies because he hated all things Hollywood.

Recording for the score started today. Pretty exciting. I'm almost as excited just to hear Howard Shore's music. Can't wait.

http://www.musicoflotr.com/2012/08/commencement.html?m=1

First look at two new characters.





And the White Council



[This message has been edited by sharkenleo (edited 9/2/2012 7:53p).]

Just as I predicted, the second film will be The Desolation of Smaug, still confirmed for December 2013. There and Back Again is confirmed for July 18, 2014.

From the press release describing the third film as an "action spectacle", it's pretty much a given the film will focus on the Battle of Five Armies.

Sucks we have to wait till then, but I expect we'll get a hell of a trilogy.

Well see. Killing the dragon makes a nice neat ending for film two, but non fans are going to be confused about what the point of another movie is.

The battle of the 5 armies will be great, but it can't last more than 45min, and it can't be the end of the third movie.

quote:

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With the release of the new “Hobbit” app for Apple products, Warner Bros. has also opened the floodgates of new images and smacked viewers in the head with the ending of the first film, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” The app came with a spoiler tag, but we know there are plenty of readers who are trying not to know every little detail, much less the breakdown of how these films become three movies from one book. Honoring those folks, we have hidden the unmistakable image after the break. It duplicates the promotional scroll released right before Comic-Con (take a gander here) when there where still two films. That confirmed the original break and this one, the new ending of the first film.

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So it seems like the ending will be much earlier in the first film, when the eagles rescue the dwarves. I just wonder if that means they're putting in more stuff or simply making it a shorter movie. A 2 hour movie from Peter Jackson just wouldn't seem right.

[This message has been edited by sharkenleo (edited 9/8/2012 9:00a).]

According to several sources, a new trailer is expected very soon. Some are saying Sept 22, which is Frodo and Bilbo's birthday. Can't wait.

[This message has been edited by sharkenleo (edited 9/16/2012 11:16a).]

And now confirmed by PJ himself for Sept 19th. 3 days!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151241173951807

[This message has been edited by sharkenleo (edited 9/16/2012 11:26a).]

This picture is rad. Pun intended.



Edit: Some more new pics.











[This message has been edited by sharkenleo (edited 9/17/2012 10:32a).]

New trailer is out.
trailers.apple.com

[This message has been edited by TexAgBolter (edited 9/19/2012 9:36a).]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MvzDqm-Hc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER.

I guess if I have one complaint, it's the CGI goblin Bilbo is fighting around 1:09. I hope that's not an indication that all the goblins will be CGI. The orc makeup in LOTR was perfect, and nothing beats physical costumes and makeup, IMO.

so ****ing sweet. can't wait.

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America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive.

That sword is so f***ing sweet!

I don't really like Ocrist and Glamdring looking so different.

Seems to me as the swords are related, they should have a similar style.

Awesome trailer