Peter Jackson is producing The Hobbit

[trekgeezer]

Looks like Peter and New Line kissed and made up. The only part that bothers me is that he is not directing the movies (yes, it will be in two parts).


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071218/ap_en_mo/film_the_hobbit

[akiratubo]

I'm actually glad Jackson won't be directing.  IMHO, the LOTR movies weren't all that and King Kong owed every bit of goodness it possessed to Naomi Watts and Andy Serkis, not Jackson.  Dead Alive seems almost like a fluke compared to Jackson's latest output.

I'm not too keen on The Hobbit being presented in two movies.  Regardless of how verbose Tokien could be, there's just not enough plot there for two movies.  Hell, LOTR could have been compressed into one three hour movie!

[indianasmith]

The LOTR trilogy are my favorite films of all time, and I can't wait to see THE HOBBIT . . . . although I don't understand splitting it in two either.  Still, the end product should be awesome!

[Torgo]

I think that it would work better for Peter Jackson to not direct The Hobbit but to just produce it and exercise almost entire creative control over it in terms of casting and all that.

It would appear to people that he was just going back to the well after the massive success of the LOTR films and I think it could also be viewed as him not moving forward as a director but rather moving back into the past a bit. 

hope that made sense. I'm loaded up on cold medicine today!

[Justy]

I'm actually glad Jackson won't be directing.  IMHO, the LOTR movies weren't all that and King Kong owed every bit of goodness it possessed to Naomi Watts and Andy Serkis, not Jackson.  Dead Alive seems almost like a fluke compared to Jackson's latest output.

I'm not too keen on The Hobbit being presented in two movies.  Regardless of how verbose Tokien could be, there's just not enough plot there for two movies.  Hell, LOTR could have been compressed into one three hour movie!

Well, I have to disagree with you here. Without having Jackson's involvement LOTR would have been hacked into one movie by people who don't appreciate the nuances of Tolkein. 

As for The Hobbit being broken into two parts my guess is that the seperating point of the story is the death of Smaug. The second climax would be the battle of the five armies. I enjoy long movies I hate being ripped off by a short film. If you go to a theater buy your ticket and some modest concesions you're at $20 most places. If I'm spending that for some picture that's only 90 minutes its a ripoff.

[Gerry]

As for The Hobbit being broken into two parts my guess is that the seperating point of the story is the death of Smaug. The second climax would be the battle of the five armies.

My guess is that they will break between the Misty Mountains encounter and the entry into the Mirkwood.  The climax of the first will be the dwarves escape from the goblins assisted by the eagles, and naturally the second climax the battle of five armies.  Knowing Jackson's style, I imagine the first movie will end with Gandalf going off to the south to face the "Necromancer" leaving Bilbo and the dwarves to enter the Mirkwood on their own.

I just don't think there's enough material between the death of Smaug and the end to fill a whole feature.

[Gerry]

Just read this:

From Stuff

"Jackson and Walsh envision the first film covering the events of The Hobbit and the second bridging the 80-year gap between that novel and the first book of the trilogy.

Much of the plot for the second film would be gleaned from footnotes in The Hobbit that address that gap, Kamins said.

It was that vision that led MGM, which holds film rights to the book, to insist Jackson and Walsh make the movies.

"Once (they) played out their vision for The Hobbit as two movies ... MGM just took the position that we wanted to deal with Peter and it was not an option to do it with anybody else," Sloan said."

[Andrew]

If you go to a theater buy your ticket and some modest concesions you're at $20 most places. If I'm spending that for some picture that's only 90 minutes its a ripoff.

I disagree with this statement in a major way.  What I want to see is an entertaining movie.  Quite often, I think some mediocre movies would have been much better if they were shortened from 2 hours to 90 minutes and the story tightened up to the important parts.

[Justy]

If you go to a theater buy your ticket and some modest concesions you're at $20 most places. If I'm spending that for some picture that's only 90 minutes its a ripoff.

I disagree with this statement in a major way.  What I want to see is an entertaining movie.  Quite often, I think some mediocre movies would have been much better if they were shortened from 2 hours to 90 minutes and the story tightened up to the important parts.

I understand what you are saying. Yes, there are movies that work well when they streamlined. However, my main gripe is when people, mainly critics, look at the legth of a movie and criticise it solely on the length not content. "Oh the movie was great, but it was too long... blah... blah..." Those critiques really get my goat. It is my opinion that as long as the movie is watchable longer is better. Especially when it comes to movies based on novels. It annoys me when they say you can't use the whole story because the movie would be too long. So that is basically what I was referring to before.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Well, I have no interest in seeing it. I did not enjoy "The Fellowship of the Ring," and I enjoyed "The Two Towers" even less, so I saw no point in seeing "The Return of the King." So, I see no point in seeing this one neither. But I do wonder if it is not too little too late. It would seem that the best time for "The Hobbit" would be a year or two after "The Return of the King," not seven years after, as it is scheduled now.

[Justy]

Well, I have no interest in seeing it. I did not enjoy "The Fellowship of the Ring," and I enjoyed "The Two Towers" even less, so I saw no point in seeing "The Return of the King." So, I see no point in seeing this one neither. But I do wonder if it is not too little too late. It would seem that the best time for "The Hobbit" would be a year or two after "The Return of the King," not seven years after, as it is scheduled now.

Well, I don't see how anyone could have sped it up. Peter Jackson and New Line weren't talking. As for it being late, I disagree. The Hobbit has a built in audience who will see it. It's not a fad whose time has passed. As long as they don't do anything really stupid in casting or the adaption from the book they should be fine. Since the Hobbit was only one book and not three I don't see anything being cut from the book especially with it being split between two movies. So they're not likely to tick off anybody in that regard. People will go in droves when it comes out. The story is your basic fun little adventure, it's hardly the historically deep story that LoTR was.

[akiratubo]

As long as they don't do anything really stupid in ... the adaption from the book

Like splitting it into two movies?   

[Justy]

As long as they don't do anything really stupid in ... the adaption from the book

Like splitting it into two movies?   

True... true... although personally it doesn't phase me at all. We'll just have to see how they craft the two movies.

[trekgeezer]

They don't actually intend on splitting the book into two movies. They plan on filming the Hobbit and then making a film using Tolkien's other writings to bridge the 60 year gap between The Hobbit and the LOTR.

According to who you believe right now it looks like Jackson won't be directing. He is currently working on The Lovely Bones and will be starting a trilogy with Spielberg of the Adventures of Tintin. These will be motion capture animation and each director will helm one of the films, with the third director as yet unnamed. 

[BoyScoutKevin]

They don't actually intend on splitting the book into two movies. They plan on filming the Hobbit and then making a film using Tolkien's other writings to bridge the 60 year gap between The Hobbit and the LOTR.

According to who you believe right now it looks like Jackson won't be directing. He is currently working on The Lovely Bones and will be starting a trilogy with Spielberg of the Adventures of Tintin. These will be motion capture animation and each director will helm one of the films, with the third director as yet unnamed. 

According to the discussion about this on another board, what Trekgeezer says about the idea for the films seems to be right. He just beat me to what I was going to say about the two films.