Jackson Slated to Make Hobbit Movie, Sequel

syrinx writes "Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, and MGM have agreed to work on two new movies: a film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit', and a further sequel. From the article: 'The two Hobbit films ... are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, with pre-production beginning as soon as possible. Principal photography is tentatively set for a 2009 start, with the intention of 'The Hobbit' release slated for 2010 and its sequel the following year, in 2011.'" Not sure if it would be possible to nab Ian Holm as Bilbo, but here's hoping.

sequel?

Didn't he already shoot the sequel to The Hobbit?

Re:sequel?

Will it include The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins [google.com] by Leonard Nimoy?

Re:sequel?

'Will the sequel be an original story? Or is there an existing (unfinished?) story to base it on?'

Jackson isn't really bothered either way. He pretty much wrote a new story for The Two Towers, with a few set pieces from the book (mainly battles) inserted to let us know which film we were watching. And a Hobbit sequel will give him plenty of time to explore the history of Lurtz:

http://archives.theonering.net/movie/char/lurtz.html [theonering.net]

explain how the Elves developed the art of Shield Surfing:

http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/view/7427 [theonering.net]

tell the sad story of how Denethor became such a messy eater:

http://www.tk421.net/lotr/film/rotk/img/rotk0911.jpg [tk421.net]

get Bilbo's friends out of a tight situation with a hilarious dwarf tossing scene:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_tossing#Popular_culture_references_to_dwarf_tossing [wikipedia.org]

and have Agent Elrond turn up with a sword at random moments:

http://productimages1.colony1.net/5851/Elrond%20Bust.jpg [colony1.net]

just in time for a bit of gratuitous decapitation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=The_Mouth_of_Sauron [wikipedia.org]

Ian McKellen will be excellent, though.

Re:sequel?

I would prefer he do a series of short films based on the Unfinished Tales, then a documentary based on the Silmarilion. That would be awesome beyond all reason.

Re:sequel?

"The movies are for entertainment"...

So what the fuck are the books for?

Re:sequel?

A cure to insomnia.

Re:sequel?

Documentary based on the Silmarillion

Now that is a brilliant idea.

Oh god, no... are you insane? The Silmarillion was like the Old Testament "Numbers" but for people who fantasize about fucking elves. And yeah, "fucking" is a verb in that sentence. "And Elbereth begat Dorkagar who begat Losermir and Choadalwyn, and Choadalwyn began Unwashedereth who did dewll in his mother's basement."

Re:sequel?

That would be awesome for the nerds of us who stayed awake through the introduction to the Valar.

Re:sequel?

I think that the opening, with the creation of the world through the orchestra of the Valar would probably be one of the most epic and impressive audiovisual entertainments ever, if done right.

Re:sequel?

Be ready for disappointment - we've seen this "shoot the prequels after the main trilogy" bit before. $5 says Bilbo stabs first, Gimli will be replaced by an annoying CGI sidekick, and we'll learn that the rings get their special power because they're made of high-strength mitochlorian alloy.

Re:sequel?

I think you're trying to nitpick... So I thought I would respond in kind.

There are 13 Dwarves in the hobbit. Well there are more (such as Dain), but 13 in the party set out to reclaim the lonely mountain... Bilbo makes the party not an unlucky number.

thorin
fili kili
oin gloin
bifur bufor
bombur
balin dwalin
ori dori nori

Re:sequel?

I can understand the source of your confusion -- "Peter Jackson" and "George Lucas" sound almost identical.

Re:sequel?

Be ready for disappointment - we've seen this "shoot the prequels after the main trilogy" bit before. $5 says Bilbo stabs first, Gimli will be replaced by an annoying CGI sidekick, and we'll learn that the rings get their special power because they're made of high-strength mitochlorian alloy.

Don't be ridiculous. Whatever changes Jackson makes to the original plot will only be to engage the audience and create a more enjoyable movie experience. For example:

• We will find out exactly why nobody tosses a dwarf.
• We will witness the pulse-pounding "River Elf Olympics," complete with log rolling, barrel tossing, and other feats of leaping and agility.
• Dori will be revisioned as a bearded, female dwarf -- but will her fondness for gold jewelery doom the expedition?
• Jackson has secured the rights to the "Down, down to goblin town" song from the Rankin-Bass production, to be sung by Meatloaf during the end credits.
• Due to pacing issues, Gollum's riddle game will be replaced with a form of Sudoku based on elf-runes -- expect toy tie-ins to be hot sellers for the Christmas season!
• Extended sequences featuring Sauron in his guise as the Necromancer, complete with much foreshadowing.
• We are enthralled as Andy Serkis succumbs to the Gollum persona as the movies progress; he completes his transformation by the end of the second film. Also, we are treated to a sneak preview of the riddle (sorry, Sudoku) game, in which Bilbo sees Gollum playing against Smeagol.
• Beorn saves the party by battling several dinosaurs and a giant ape.
• While in the house of Elrond, Bilbo plays Cyrano to a young Aragorn as he attempts to court his lady love, Arwen.
• Bilbo kills Smaug.

Great fun for the whole family!

Re:sequel?

I mean, Gimli's not even in The Hobbit.

... not yet.

Re:sequel?

I read "Jackson Slated to Make Hobbit SQUEAL"...

(OOPS)

Re:sequEl?

The first movie will be entitled "The Hobbit." The second movie is tenatively entitled "Movie About Hobbits in an Effort to Milk the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit Properties for All They're Worth." Of course, this is a tenative title and subject to change.

Re:sequEl?

NO just watch...
First movie. The Hobbit: There
Second movie. The Hobbit: And Back again

Just like the iocane powder I found, I'd bet my life on it!

Re:sequEl?

You mean like this [peopleofhonoronly.com]? ;-)

Re:sequal?

The second movie will be a TV special entitled: "The Lord of the Rings Holiday Special", in which Gandalf and Frodo visit the shire to celebrate "Life Day". Meanwhile the town of Hobbiton is being overrun by ringwraiths who try to ruin everything but eventually learn the true meaning of Life Day. Also includes Liv Tyler singing the main theme of "The Lord of the Rings".

Re:Not that I care, but

But of course, like every such statement people make (e.g. "There's no way i'm sleeping with that donkey"), there is an unstated but very much present addendum of "unless someone gives me enough money, in which case hell yeah".

P.S. examples are not from personal experience, and you can't prove otherwise.

Re:Not that I care, but

P.S. examples are not from personal experience, and you can't prove otherwise.

Unless I pay someone enough money for the tape, right?

Re:Not that I care, but

Unless I pay someone enough money for the tape, right?

Ah, you're catching on.

Re:Not that I care, but

Jackson has always wanted to do film The Hobbit, but due to legal issues [premiere.com] they couldn't agree on terms.

They've finally resolved, woo!

Re:Not that I care, but

Somehow I think that this has more to do with the disappointing results from the Golden Compass movie, which New line was hoping would be a 3-year blockbuster holiday series. It appears that the various religious groups are convincing their members to stay away from it due to the anti-religious message in the books.

Re:Not that I care, but

It appears that the various religious groups are convincing their members to stay away from it due to the anti-religious message in the books.

While that may be true, it may not be the reason for the low revenue. It's possible that it just isn't a very good movie. It's currently running 43% at Rotten Tomatoes [rottentomatoes.com], which is pretty bad. I've seen the movie, and while it's not that bad, it's seriously flawed.

Slashdot trolls

finally have a place to apply.

Saumel L Jackson?

Was I the only one who was worried that the title was referring to Michael Jackson?

For some reason, I initially thought of Samuel L Jackson. Wouldn't that be interesting? "Get away from the gemstone Mother F*cker!"

Re:Saumel L Jackson?

shouldn't that be: "What have I got in my pocket, Mother F*cker!?"

Re:Note to director: no jar-jar

Note to director: please don't add some pointless character to sell kids toys in this movie, just go "by the book", literally.

But, Jackson didn't do that in LOTR did he? Except for some minor changes to the overall arc of the film, I found he did a pretty faithful job of it.

I think he's the director we have the least to worry about. At least, I hope he is. The cinemas wanted him because he has proven he can make the movies (and, of course, make the money) - at least it's not Uwe Boll. ;-)

Cheers

Re:Comical dwarves?

What was Jackson thinking there? "Hey, let's make an epic movie, based on an epic novel. And why not change the complete character of one of the key players?"

He was thinking, "Goddamn, this Tolkien guy needed to get laid. This whole thing is one giant sausage-fest, and ol' J.R.R.'s idea of comic relief appears to have been, well, Tom Bombadil. If I'm going to bring these stories to a wider audience, which I have to do in order to justify the production costs needed to do justice to the material, I'm obviously going to have to tweak a few things. I can have turn Gimli into a goofball and have Arwen save Frodo, or everything else about the production is going to suck. Gee. What do I do here?"

Hmmm...

Peter Jackson did a great job in visualizing and bringing to life a story in which the plot was already fully written. I love the fact he's producing a version of "the hobbit" to go along with the LOTR Trilogy, but I'm not so sure about the sequel to it. I realize there is a gap between the two stories (around a 70 year gap actually) but what will the plot consist of?

I suppose it could go both ways, the first way with Peter Jackson doing a great job of tying the two books together and leading straight into the LOTR trilogy, the other with Peter Jackson unzipping and urinating on JRR Tolkien's masterpieces.

Re:Hmmm...

Somebody already commented on possible plot details between the Hobbit and LOTR: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=320733&cid=20896787 [slashdot.org]

What exactly happens, of any interest, in that period?

Hmm.. I'm not 100% on the timeline but...

Gandalf and Aragorn meet. The romance of Aragorn and Arwen. Aragorn serving with the Armies of Rohan.

Gollum pursues Bilbo from the mountains. I beleive Gandalf investigates the creature and discovers its history in this period. Mordor also captures Gollum at some point.

The Dwarves (including Balin of the hobbits) try and retake Moria.

Sauruman is corrupted by Mordor through the Palantir.

Sauroman corrupts Theoden through Grima Wormtongue.

Sauron, identified as the 'Necromancer' was discovered as the source of evil in Mirkwood and was driven out by the White Council, only to resurface later rebuilding in Mordor.

I dunno... I've seen movies made on smaller premises than that :)

How many versions will we see of this film?

Gold edition, 3D, directors cut? I plan on seeing it since the LOTR was soooo dang good.
I'm really quite interested to see how Smaug is done. The 3D done well might really up the bar for many action movies, and might set a new standard.

However, the movie still has to be good - putting lipstick on a pig still looks awful.

Re:How many versions will we see of this film?

putting lipstick on a pig still looks awful.

But have you seen the new lipstick? It uses subsurface scattering and revolutionary new food-stain shaders.

Sequel??

Did he get some kind of wizard trick to summon the dead spirit of JRR Tolkein to write a new novel which to utilize as a sequel?

Why do I fear this "prequil" will suffer the same fate as the Lucas prequils, with Bilbo at the end screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Re:Sequel??

You just NAILED another reason copyright is useless, or at least useless for the current years (beyond the life of the author).

Here's a guy who just happens to be a KID of someone who created something fine. Someone else, who puts his money, time and name on the line decides to produce the movie. The movie is a success (by most), but the risk was huge. We're talking a risk of probably 9 figures? But yet the kid who has done nothing, can do nothing, and has no moral connection to the creation thinks he is due some money?

That's the problem with copyright: the actions of an individual are prevented from even being done. If the rights to the movie weren't optioned out a long time ago, its possible the movie might never have been made. I can think of quite a few movies that are prevented from being made because of the rights of the long-dead authors being held closely.

Sidenote: Just yesterday I inquired by Bozo the Clown (Chicago's version in Bob Bell) didn't wear the Bozo outfit when he accepted an award many years ago (before his death). I guess the guy who owned the rights to Bozo's look denied him the costume. Even worse, the guy who owned the rights wasn't even the guy who invented Bozo, but a guy who distributed Bozo shows. Unbelievable!

Re:Sequel??

..with Bilbo at the end screaming "DO NOT WANT"

There, fixed that for you.

Actors ...

Not sure if it would be possible to nab Iam Holm as Bilbo, but here's hoping.

He might be a little old to play Bilbo as he was well cast to play a Bilbo who settled down for quite some time, but much older than Bilbo was when Hobbit happened.

I'm wondering if they'll be able to get Ian McKellen to play Gandalf again. I'm trying to think how many recurrent characters there were across the Hobbit and LOTR -- Bilbo, Gandalf, and maybe Elrond (it's been a long time since I read the Hobbit).

Unless Sir Ian is otherwise booked, I bet he'd love to revive his Gandalf role.

Though, I must confess, I'm a little unsure of what this other sequel is, and TFA appears to have died under the strain.

Does anyone have more info on that?

Cheers

Re:Actors ...

I believe that Sir Ian McKellen has said that he would be overjoyed to play Gandalf-- but not if Peter Jackson wasn't involved. I would say he's likely to reprise the role, which is more important than Ian Holm (who would clearly be too old) in terms of continuity. I'd say the other big role to worry about would be Gollum.

Re:Actors ...

Lots of studio execs saying nice things about Peter Jackson that they don't believe.

Peter Jackson helped generate several billion dollars in revenue. Believe it or no, I bet nobody in the studio system would dare to say anything but flattering things about him -- these movies will succeed because he'll be given the funding he needs from the start, and the right talent will happily come work with him on it.

I mean, really, show of hands ... how many of us will go see it on general principles or on the sheer fact that Jackson is doing it with hopefully some of the same cast and same fervent attention to detail? If Ian McKellen comes back, I can guarantee I'll go.

At this point, Jackson is the goose that laid the golden ring, err, egg. :-P I bet the execs have been fawning over him for months to get him to agree to do it -- I see they settled all pending litigation and made nice nice. Any other director doing this would fail due to fan hostility.

Cheers

The Sequel's title will be...

"The daily life of Tom Bombadil, Treebeard, and Radagast" Sponsored by Green Peace.

the ending..

I hope they get the the ending right [youtube.com] this time.

LOTR actors

I don't think Ian Holm will be able to be cast as Bilbo... they made him look younger for a brief shot in LOTR, but from what I remember it involved stretching the skin on his face, etc, and wouldn't be workable for a full movie.

Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis I believe have both said they'd be very interested in coming back for a Hobbit movie as Gandalf and Gollum. The only other cross-over character bookwise would be Elrond; I don't know if Hugo Weaving has said anything one way or the other. (I suppose there was some guy in the FOTR movie who was ostensibly Gloin at the council scene, but I don't think anyone would notice if he came back or not...)

They could sneak in cameos from other actors I suppose; there's nothing saying Legolas wasn't hanging out with his father in the Elves' home in Mirkwood. I don't know that I want Legolas showing up at the Battle of Five Armies to surf on an eagle shooting down wargs though.

(Hey, so about 7 years in between accepted Slashdot submissions. Roland, I'm catching up!)

This would make the BEST sequel ever

I think Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn came up with the best idea for a LotR sequel EVAR! Maybe this is what they mean? :)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EqMV_3JusXY [youtube.com]

wow

Wow, Peter jackson looks like he lost about 890572349087 pounds. Good for him. As for The Hobbit... Geeze, get a move on, I wanna see it yesterday already!

TFA, apparently sucks, read the BBC story

I say "apparently" because TFA is actually blocked where I am right now, but the most common questions people seem to be asking in this discussion are:

1) "Sequel, WTF?"

and

2)"Will Ian McKellen return as Gandalf?"

According to this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7150644.stm [bbc.co.uk]
the answers are:

1) No, there will not be a sequel based on some new not-created-by-Tolkien story, The Hobbit will be two movies.

2) Yes.

I'd rather not

Unless Jackson is able to completely redo his visual style (and/or the way of thinking) for this project, I would not call this a good idea. "Hobbit" and "LOTR", even though separated in time by only several dozen years, evoke completely different feelings - with the former still staged inside a fairy tale, a time of wonders, while the latter is a clinical account of the fading of the Age; and since Jackson completely nailed that one, I find it hard to believe that the all-important overall tone is going to be adequate for the "Hobbit" project. He's going to film another installment of the same movie, and no mistake.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS TO RULE THEM ALL

One billion to find them,
On billion to take them all,
And in the contracts bind them ...

In the studios, where the lawyers lie.

There is too much that wasn't said...

While this comment is likely to get buried in the avalanche that preceeded it, I feel that it's necesary to point a few things out.

Most glaringly, the press release doesn't have any mention of Warner Bros. MGM doesn't hold the film rights to The Hobbit; Warner Bros. does, after purchasing them from the Saul Zaentz Corporation. The only thing that the press release mentions is that legal difficulties over The Lord of the Rings have been resolved, none of which involved the labyrinth of licensing issues around Tolkien's other works. Warner Bros. has been blocking the idea of letting the rights go ever since The Fellowship of the Ring turned out to be a hit. I see no indication that this has changed.

Second, although TheOneRing.net has a pretty good track record, they've been wrong before. Several years ago, they trumpeted the release of a "trailer" for The Hobbit, and later had to correct themselves when it turned out to be a fan-created work. Yes, TORn links to MGM's official media release page, but the only other link is to The Hobbit Blog. The blog seems to be officially sponsored by New Line, but the only link to it is in the sign-up page (for New Line's privacy policy), and the only link from New Line to the blog is in the press release, which is also posted on New Line's site. There aren't a lot of branches on this particular "family tree".

Next, there's Christoper Tolkien's long-standing disdain for any and all film adaptations of J.R.R.'s work. There wasn't much that he could do about The Hobbit and LotR, because his father sold the film rights to Zaentz himself. However, Christopher takes his position as his father's literary executor very seriously, and the chances that he will give the nod to use of any of his father's notes for a film that fills in the gap between The Hobbit and LotR are minute to the point of nonexistance.

I doubt that this is an elaborate hoax. I could see hacking one film studio site, but not two. However, I would be much more sanguine about the project if there were a linked article from an industry publication such as Variety, and preferably one that went into detail about how the legal wrangles with Warner Bros. and Zaentz were resolved.

Ian Holm?

I seem to remember some comment saying it was difficult to make him look like a "younger" Bilbo in the introduction for a single scene. Would he be able to play the young Bilbo for the entirety of a film?

(If so, it would be cool if they managed to insert a part of the LotR ring-finding scene as it is, retroactively turning it into a flashback scene from the prequel while maintaining continuity with the other scenes in the Hobbit film itself. Movie continuity is an amusing topic.)

Re:is this a good idea?

He will disappoint you. Bank on it. The other 99.99% of us will, however, probably like it.

Re:is this a good idea?

This is, of course, a matter of opinion

True, it's all opinion, but even art allows for some objectivity. "Abject disaster" sounds like the small minded bitchiness of someone whose opinion isn't worth listening to.

Re:Martin Freeman Would Be Better

Am I the only one who's noticed that Martin Freeman wasn't actually in the LOTR?

Re:is this a good idea?

Given the abject disasters that Jackson's "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King" were

Box office sales, the Oscars (ROTK garned a Best Film award of 2003), numerous film critics, the countless fans that enjoyed the trilogy, and many other film awards disagree with you there. Those two films may have strayed of the Tolkien path somewhat, but to call them an "abject disaster" is hilarious. Fortunately, your opinion is only shared by a small minority.

Re:good, might as well ruin the Hobbit too

Don't write- just film the book. Thank you.

Yes, because there's nothing the general audience adores more than a 20 hour movie, of which 15 hours are shots of people walking, accented by the occasional 2 hour Ent song.