By At Comic-Con Peter Jackson teased that he was shooting more footage for his upcoming epic The Hobbit and that it would either be used as bonus material on the Blu-ray release or to, you know, make another entire film. While the idea of a Hobbit trilogy pretty much excited everyone I was a little skeptical that Warner Bros. would let him move forward with turning a planned two-part film into a three-part film. My skepticism was wrong it turns out as THR is reporting that Jackson and his co-producer Fran Walsh are set on making a trilogy and just need to iron out the details with WB.
Warner Bros. couldn’t be reached for comment, but sources say they’re entirely on board as long as certain financial obligations are met like property rights and contracts with the actors. Why wouldn’t they be, really? Means more box office gross for them. It may also be a logistical nightmare as the contracts would have to be hammered out soon so that the planned shooting in New Zealand next summer could go off without a hitch.
For me turning The Hobbit into a trilogy is pretty awesome, especially since Jackson has been saying that the reason he expanded it to two movies originally is to tell more of the back story from Middle Earth. While the book itself is relatively short and could pretty easily be covered in one film I think expanding the universe out to two more films and connecting it to LOTR can only be a good thing with Jackson at the helm. We may also avoid the multiple ending syndrome a lot better this time around if Jackson is given an entire third film to conclude the story.
[THR, via Collider]