Any predictions about the director? Sam Raimi? Richard Taylor?

A sequel to The Hobbit? I thought that's what Lord of the Rings was...

If it's not Peter or Fran (who has proven to be a fine assistant director in her own right), it will likely be one of the small army of assistant directors from the first three films.

Between James McTieague's work on The Wachowskis' V FOR VENDETTA and one of Wingut's assistant directors taking over the Jackson-produced DAM BUSTERS remake, I'm intrigued by this new trend of powerhouse directors grooming their highly capable assistant directors to take over high profile productions.

Besides, I'd personally be much happier with an up and coming assistant director from the previous films who already has experience with this production. There's no point in bringing a "name director" when one is not needed.

The plan seems to be to embellish Bilbo's journey with the politics of Middle Earth leading up to Sauron's return. Instead of a story about a simple little man's journey into the larger world, Jackson intends to put it into the epic context of LotR, presumably ending on a cliffhanger which finds Bilbo only half way to The Lonely Mountain.

OR, there will be a bridge film between THE HOBBIT and LORD OF THE RINGS although that wouldn't be as exciting seeing as the more pressing story will and should be Bilbo's.

A shame, to my way of thinking.

For me, the whole appeal of THE HOBBIT is that it's LOTR writ small, without the heft and pomp of an epic quest - a grand, self-contained adventure, wholly dependent on its characters.

I suspect it's the latter. The reason for this is because the Tolkien estate won't relinquish the film rights to anything anymore, but JRRT sold THE HOBBIT and LOTR years ago, so they are trying to milk what they own as much as possible, which includes writing a new story that fits between the two.

Truly? That's a shame. I'd hoped to see someone do something with part of The Silmarillion one day. Of course, these sorts of decisions have a way of changing. A while ago, Peter Jackson was saying he would so totally not be a part of any HOBBIT movie...

I'm not overjoyed about this news. I'd rather see someone other than Jackson do THE HOBBIT. I've always had mixed feelings on his LOTR movies, and don't want to see him become the official adapter of Tolkien for the cinema.

Guess New Line isn't going to pin their hopes on HIS DARK MATERIALS being their next big tentpole franchise...

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."


This matches pretty much with what has been said before. Makes sense, in somewhat extending the movies while keeping THE HOBBIT fairly self contained as a prelude.

I'm actually interested in seeing an "in between" film that sets things up for LOTR. There definitely was an "incident" with Sauron, when he was known as the Necromancer of Mirkwood, where Legolas resides as Prince. That's why Gandalf disappears for a bit. It would also be nice to see Saruman as head of the council, before he went completely insane, and get a glimpse into the ego issues between him and Gandalf.
I think it would also give a chance to maybe see Sauron, if only in flashback. Maybe in his "prettier" form.

OTOH, that's a rule adhered to by Christopher Tolkien as literary executor, and he's hardly a youngster. The next generation doesn't seem to be nearly as opposed to film adaptations. It won't happen any time soon, I suppose.

A friend of mine suggested these titles:
There
Back Again
:lol:

The Hobbit, from the perspective of adapting the novel to film, struck me as a rather episodic story filled with thrilling scenes you'd want neither abbreviated or eliminated. I don't want the Riddles In The Dark scene shortened any more than the next fan. But the temptation might be to skew The Hobbit to include somewhat younger viewers not comfortable with a 3+ hour running time. Two 2-hour films, padded with some other prequel jazz, would solve that problem.

Outside of Bilbo, Gandalf, Gollum, and a couple others, I don't remember many interesting characters. While Tolkien spins a fine tale, he doesn't really develop all those traveling dwarves beyond giving them names and different colored caps. Even more than in the book of Fellowship Of The Ring, the hook is all the chapters dealing with the monsters and other perils they meet along the way. It's an as-yet unrealized Road Movie. :)

Regardless of their plan, I trust Jackson & Co and I'm glad to hear it's gonna happen. The world can always use another movie with spider monsters.

Wouldn't it be interesting if Sam Raimi, who's expressed interest in THE HOBBIT, directed and Jackson and CO. produced? Could be pretty cool.
Or...OMG! Guillermo Del Toro! Wow. That would be incredible.




Oh, I remember plenty from THE HOBBIT. There's a lot of humour, and a memorable character on Beorn, the skinwalker.

The problem with your idea is that assistant directors have no artistic say in a film whatsoever. They literally run the crew and keep the production on schedule, period. Although the credit "assistant director" might make you THINK the average AD would be well-qualified to step-up to the position of full-on director, it's rarely the case. If anything, a 2nd Unit Director would be more apt, since at least they are actually behind the camera and in control of a unit gathering footage, they aren't just barking "Action!" and "Cut!" at the director's behest.

Vincent

He means the directors of the various units, who were given a much longer leash than is usual due to the sheer number of set-ups Jackson had to generate to make all three films at such an accelerated pace. He was literally bicycling around from unit to unit checking playback on takes.

Ah, well that makes more sense. As I pointed out in my post, "unit directors" are very different from "assistant directors". The only "assistant director" I can think of who's gone onto having a particularly memorable directorial career would be Michele Soavi.

Vincent

Raimi's next film.

No, it's not THE HOBBIT, but um, well - read the article.

ANOTHER remake of EVIL DEAD? One wasn't enough? :blink:

Drag Me To Hell, a "spook-a-blast" low-budget horror movie that Sam Raimi is directing (instead of yet more Spidey) early next year, from a script he wrote with his brother after Army Of Darkness... well, I don't see any downside here. It sounds like my prayers on the Spider-Man 3 thread have been answered.