This better mean that #2 gets released sooner and #3 takes the spot it was going to have instead of #3 coming out a year after #2.

This is insane!

You can read that book in an afternoon.

Read the link, it explains it.

You will be nerd raging.

Oh Peter... just go all out and make it an eight part miniseries with each episode being standard movie length already. The studio will be happier, you get to work on the franchise for longer and the fans will.... STILL complain that their favorite character that was totally irrelevant to the story and took up a whole two sentences was cut but eh whatcha gonna do. Then after this he can do the Simarillion. Which should occupy at least the next 20 years of film making for him quite nicely.

The first installment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will hit theaters and IMAX on December 14. The Hobbit: There and Back Again will follow on December 13, 2013. The third film is expected to hit theaters in the summer of 2014.

Bah, don't spoon feed it to him.

Now that they are old news, will I not be pilloried for saying that his previous films, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, were merely very good, and not quite timeless masterpieces?

Not by me. They are excellent movies, and I enjoy them. But I can't honestly think of ANY moves I would have as required viewing for educational/cultural/social reasons. That means because of the quality of the movie, not their social values.

LOTR extended is around 11 1/2 hours long, hopefully the 3 are around that total time so I can waste an entire day watching the entire series.

I don't think I could endure waiting between movies again, I'll wait for all three to be available to be watched back to back.

It remains my favorite 12 hour movie.

Peter Jackson is just trying to get his Episodes I, II, and III done and out of the way...

I read that he is drawing on a lot of appendices, and that we will see a fully realized Battle of Dol Guldur.

I honestly have no problem with any of this. Bring it on, Peter!

Yeah, but he was already doing that when it was 2 movies.

So where do you guys think the breaks are going to be, at least in terms of The Hobbit?

I think...Movie 1: Shire, Trolls, Rivendell, Misty Mountains, Goblintown, Gollum, Eagles, Beorne, (Gandalf leaves here)

Movie 2: Mirkwood, Spiders, Wood Elves, Dale, Lonely Mountain, Smaug

Movie 3: Battle of the Five Armies, Return to the Shire

Does this mean the Similarion will be 20 films? Tbh I cream myself thinking about how awesome Morgoth would be, make Sauron look like the henchmen he really is.

Only if you didn't try and tell The Silmarillion as one story. Basically, you could make 20 different stand-alone stories out of it, but whoever made the movies would have to write like 90% of the plot to each story, because each one is just like a small entry in the book.

I could see The Silmarillion as like an HBO series where every episode told another tale from the book.

This sounds like a pretty good sequence, but remember they also said they're going to be including a lot of between-the-books stuff to bridge this series and LotR; they originally talked about making a whole movie just out of those sequences. I think they'll be tacked onto #3 now.

I know. All of that stuff happens between Mirkwood and the Battle of the Five Armies. When Gandalf isn't there.

So the third movie could just be the Battle of Dol Guldur, then Gandalf rushed back with the eagles to the Battle of the Five armies, then the happy ending.

You guys are gonna make me read the book arent you?

The Hobbit is a fairly quick read. It's more of a regular story than a dense epic stuffed with songs and poems and family trees and language glossaries.

Going by Game of Thrones, it would be Orcs and Tits.

In HBOs defense, GRR Martin is totally a 14 year old boy when hes writing, he wants tons of blood and sex, Tolkien is an 11 year old girl, he wants songs and elves and just occasional blood. So the HBO series....might not have boobs?

You forgot ponies.

I know, I read it years ago, and I know Ill read it again before the movie comes out. Speaking of which, Im ok with him splitting it into 3 movies as long as each movie is at least 2 hours long. But if they are 1.5 hours long, Im gonna be pissed at the super obvious money grab, at 2+ I will at least feel I got moneys worth.

An HBO series without boobs? What's the point?

Elf boobs would be niiiice. Dwarf boobs would nooooot.

Don't be hating on dwarf chicks. They're just the right height. Besides, their beards tickle your doodads.

That joke never gets old...

Nope. Never does!