Hollywood Babble On & On #931: A Hard Hobbit To Break?

Sometimes you just have to wonder about how Hollywood thinks, if it thinks at all.

Now after the mega-success of The Lord Of The Rings movie trilogy it was deemed inevitable that a movie version of Tolkien's prequel The Hobbit was going to be made, and that Peter Jackson would be involved to maintain the film's connection with the original trilogy. There were distractions and setbacks as other directors were courted to make the film, but eventually it all went back to Jackson.

There was much cheering by fans because it sounded like the best case scenario for the movie.

Then they announced that the movie was going to be shot at 48 frames per second, instead of the usual 24 fps, and folks shrugged their shoulders and figured that Jackson must know what he's doing.

Then it was announced that they were splitting the project into two films, cutting the book in half. The audience wondered if that was necessary, because The Hobbit isn't that big a novel, but again they thought that Jackson must know what he's doing.

Now they've announced that they're thinking of making a third movie, and the audience is now thinking that they're pushing it.

They're thinking of making a movie based on the 125 pages of notes and appendices that Tolkien included in the novel The Return Of The King. They include a lot of the history of Middle Earth, and explain some of the events that occur between The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to call "Bullshit" on this whole "third movie" thing because it reeks of a cynical cash grab on the part of New Line/Warner Brothers with Jackson as their gleeful collaborator.

Here's why:

1. Making LOTR into a movie trilogy was a logical and sensible move. We're talking about three hefty books, with lots happening in each book. On the other hand, The Hobbit, while a well packed book, isn't the mega-epic that LOTR is. It's about 1 hobbit, his immediate companions, and their adventures battling trolls, orc, and a whopper of a dragon. Cutting it into two movies is already bit of a stretch, a third movie is jerking everyone's collective chain.


2. The proposed source material, the notes and appendices at the end of LOTR, while fascinating reading are not the sort of coherent narrative one can easily put into a feature film. If it was Tolkien would have written another novel. Trying to get the content to fit into a feature film would require a lot of chopping, mashing, and smashing that runs serious risk of coming out as a complete mess.

3. But the LOTR franchise has a lot of dedicated fans who would buy tickets even if only in the name of what I call completeism. That means that the odds of it making money, regardless of quality are pretty good.




So why would Peter Jackson go along with this, even push for it?


I think insecurity goes a long way to explain it.


Why would he be insecure since he's made one of the most critically acclaimed movie trilogies of all time?


Sadly, it can happen very easily to a man in Jackson's position.


Think about the movies Jackson has directed since The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.


King Kong, a huge bombastic monstrosity of a monster movie that sold a lot of tickets, but ultimately left even the most die-hard Jackson fans unsatisfied since the only really sensation you get from the film is one of self-indulgence on the part of Jackson.

Then there was The Lovely Bones, which was supposed to be his "small film" since it was a domestic drama about a family dealing with grief that's told by their murdered daughter from the afterlife.


The problem was that he spent $70 million making his "small film" and the studio then spent another $80+ million to market the movie, only to have it vanish faster than a fart in a thunderstorm reaping none of the accolades it was designed to accumulate.


Middle Earth is a comfortable place for Jackson, it marks the high point of his career, both critically and commercially. After seeing his two non-Tolkien dream projects be branded as disappointments, it's understandable that he wants to extend his stay in a place where he's still beloved.


The problem here, the orc in the ointment, so to speak, is that this overreach could taint his entire legacy.


So I say let sleeping hobbits lie.