Lord of the Rings "Bridge" Film No More!

Ironically, I was just bitching on Twitter last night about the overall lack of news on The Hobbit as well as Spider-Man 4 and the Superman "requel."

Cut to this afternoon as Empire Online gets the scoop straight from the horses' mouths - i.e. director Guillermo del Toro and producer Peter Jackson:

“We’ve decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur,” says Del Toro.

“We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie,” adds Jackson. “The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy.”

So no more Lord of the Rings "bridge" film eh? That was always the most intriguing aspect of the new "Middle-Earth" films - for me at least.

Plus, I'm not so sure that The Hobbit has enough material to stretch into two separate installments. But maybe that's just me. I am an idiot after all...

Comments

[Phil Gee]

I think it has enough material to make into two '2 hour' movies but can they make two self contained films that can stand on their own legs and not, essentially be one giant piece cut in half and given to us in two seperate servings? Films that use that trick usually never work out very well.

[John]

Is there anything really going on with the Superman sequel for there to be any news?

[OldDarth]

Two movies seems a bit much for a story which is infinitely simpler than the LOTR. The dropping of the bridge movie is a good move IMHO. Events that end up in the appendices of Tolkien works end up there for a reason.

In the end this news ends up being a bit of a wash.