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DigificWriter
Lorien
Dec 22 2014, 7:05pm
Post #26 of 38
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There were never originally going to be more than two films
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Theree were never originally going to be more than two films. Original discussions were for one film telling the story of The Hobbit novel, and a second Hobbit film that was a 'bridge' into The Lord of the Rings.
That 'bridge movie' pretty quickly morphed into what was originally going to be There and Back Again, though, when GDT read through The Hobbit and came to the conclusion that the novel itself could be justifiably adapted into two movies.
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Salmacis81
Tol Eressea
Dec 22 2014, 7:13pm
Post #27 of 38
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It was PJ's decision, not WB's...
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I tend not to believe any of the talk referring to the three-film split as a "cash grab".
IMO it's a simple matter of PJ getting way too carried away with his own ideas. He lacks restraint.
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DigificWriter
Lorien
Dec 22 2014, 7:30pm
Post #28 of 38
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Most of what's in the films was dreamed up by Pete, Fran, Phillipa, and GDT
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People keep complaining that Peter put too much of his own material into the movies, but most of what's in them actually came from the project as it was developed with GDT in the director's chair. The scripts were rewritten after GDT left, but the content of them didn't change all that much with said rewrites.
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Salmacis81
Tol Eressea
Dec 22 2014, 7:38pm
Post #29 of 38
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...because he's in charge. Whether the ideas came from Boyens, Walsh, del Toro, or Jackson himself, at the end of the day it's PJ who calls the shots.
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moreorless
Gondor
Dec 22 2014, 8:07pm
Post #30 of 38
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I suspect a key issue was the way the break changed latter stages of the story..
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Having watched all three films my feeling now is that whilst the volume of material was one issue that lead to the switch to three films another important one was how it altered the way the latter stages of the plot could be handled.
I think an extended version of AUJ that ends as the company escapes the wood elves is quite easy to imagine, granted I think you would need some cuts and you could argue it might still be a bit rushed but the emphasis of the story would be similar.
An extended version of BOT5A that also includes the latter half or more of DOS though for me would likely need to be very different to what we saw on screen. Most obviously the spilt allows for Smaug to be built up in DOS and then the battle in BOT5A but your also potentially avoiding both an uneven plot(in terms of a big climax midway though) and allowing for the emphasis around Smaug to change.
In a film were the buildup to Smaug and his actual death at laketown happen together I think its would be hard to avoid that being painted mostly as a glorious piece of heroism by Bard. Ending DOS with the Dwarves unsuccessfully trying to kill Smaug and loosing him on laketown however allows for the emphasis to be firmly put on the idea that mere bravey from Thorin and co isn't enough if its in the service of entitled self interest.
Equally having Smaug's attack and ddeath at the start of the third film removes a good deal of the climatic heroism from it making it easier to paint it as both a disaster for the laketowners and even more importantly the idea that he's not really been "defeated" whilst the greed he represents has a hold over Thorin.
(This post was edited by moreorless on Dec 22 2014, 8:09pm)
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DigificWriter
Lorien
Dec 22 2014, 9:27pm
Post #31 of 38
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TDoS's climax was added after the decision to make things into a trilogy of films and wasn't filmed until 2013....
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.... so I suspect that, originally, the way in which Smaug exits the mountain would have played out differently with the story as a two-volume epic.
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Eleniel
Tol Eressea
Dec 22 2014, 11:01pm
Post #32 of 38
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PB has certainly confirmed that they filmed Bilbo stealing the cup, as per the book...
"Choosing Trust over Doubt gets me burned once in a while, but I'd rather be singed than hardened."
¯ Victoria Monfort
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Dec 23 2014, 12:59am
Post #33 of 38
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Well, the way it was reported at the time....
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was that it was PJ's idea, but the studio was all for it, at least according to the LA Times as reported here.
The first big hints were given at ComiCon on July 14, 2012. For reference, the announcement of Del Toro's departure from The Hobbit was made two years earlier on May 30, 2010. He was in place as the director when the decision to make two films was made, but the decision to split TABA into DOS and BOTFA was made in the midst of editing, apparently. As I recall, PJ later said in an interview that he found he already had so much material that he felt he could expand the planned "pick-ups" and flesh out two separate films.
There had been rumors of a possible third film as far back as 2009, though at that point, the general assumption was that The Hobbit would be in two parts, and the third film would be the "bridge" film, dealing with other events and tying into LOTR (possibly including the White Council and the search for Gollum).
I've always assumed that the studio was willing from early on to consider the possibility of 3 films (those bridge film rumors were persistent) but that it was entirely PJ's call to split the films as he did. In hindsight, I think he may also have felt that the tonal and thematic shift made the two new movies each more internally consistent, rather than having a rushed second film which starts one way and suddenly becomes totally different halfway through.
Silverlode
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"Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone."
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lionoferebor
Rohan
Dec 23 2014, 4:57am
Post #34 of 38
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this was a combination of the studio and Phillipa Boyens.
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DigificWriter
Lorien
Dec 23 2014, 5:16am
Post #35 of 38
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I'm interested in these '3rd film' rumors...
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... because nothing I can find concerning the development of the project mentions anything about rumors of a possible third film existing up until the point at which Peter announced that he was expanding the originally planned Hobbit Duology into a Trilogy.
According to everything I can find, the Hobbit project was always intended to be comprised of only 2 films even as far back as 2006, although the exact nature of the second film kept changing before GDT eventually decided on adapting The Hobbit novel directly into two films.
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moreorless
Gondor
Dec 23 2014, 5:44am
Post #36 of 38
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I think thats quite telling as well...
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PB has certainly confirmed that they filmed Bilbo stealing the cup, as per the book...
Unlike AUJ where there was always going to be a need to "manufacture" a bit of a climax in either a two or three film Hobbit DOS did seem to have an easy climax built into it with Smaug's death.
That Jackson didn't take that route and instead took things in the direction we saw was quite telling if you ask me. I spose the cynic would argue he wanted to keep Smaug alive for the third film to draw audiences back but really I think you had enough left in the story to do that given how much Azog/Sauron/Bolg had featured whilst shoehorned "cliffhangers" don't tend to go down well at the box office either.
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
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Dec 23 2014, 7:04am
Post #37 of 38
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as far back as 2007, there was talk of a Hobbit film plus a "bridge film", and though I do not have links to hand, I believe it was negotiated as a two-movie deal. And during the scriptwriting with Del Toro, they announced a two-part Hobbit. But since nobody really knew what was planned for the bridge film, nobody could know if it had all been included in the two-part Hobbit, or if it would be a two-part Hobbit plus... And so rumors of the bridge lingered, and gave rise to the idea of a possible third film. At that point, few people believed that they'd stretch The Hobbit itself into three - though TORN did use that idea as its 2009 April Fool's story - which worked precisely because the possibility was already in peoples' minds and being talked about.
Of course, just because there were rumors doesn't mean they accurately reflected what was really going on with the production. There was never any official word about three films until PJ hinted at it at ComiCon 2012, and I don't think he was always planning to do the Hobbit as a trilogy. I believe him when he says he decided it during editing.
Silverlode
Want a LOTR Anniversary footer of your own? Get one here!
"Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone."
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DigificWriter
Lorien
Dec 23 2014, 7:34am
Post #38 of 38
(158 views)
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Everything I can find about the "bridge film" indicates that it was very much part of the original 2-film plan. The idea, according to everything I can find, was that they would make one film with content derived directly from The Hobbit, and one film with content that 'connected the dots' between the Hobbit film and the Lord of the Rings films.
Everything I can find also says that the concept of the "bridge film" was eventually set aside by GDT in favor of telling the story of the Hobbit novel across 2 films, which he felt was more than possible after having read through the book.
As a slight aside, I'm rewatching the BtS features for The Desolation of Smaug right now, and Phillipa does say at one point that the content of the film largely hadn't been shot when the decision to turn the duology into a trilogy was made, but, in actually watching the process of filming as depicted in said features, one doesn't really get that impression at all, since most of the stuff that they talk about has accompanying 'shoot date' captions indicating that it was in fact shot during the principal photography stage in either 2011 or 2012.
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