The Hobbit is a trilogy of fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson. The films are subtitled An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). The films are based on J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, but much of the trilogy was inspired by the appendices to his 1954–55 The Lord of the Rings, which expand on the story told in The Hobbit. Additional material and new characters were created specially for the films. The series is a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
The screenplays were written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro, who had been chosen to direct before his departure from the project. The films take place in the fictional world of Middle-earth, sixty years before the beginning of The Lord of the Rings and follow hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who is convinced by the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) to accompany thirteen Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), on a quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). The films expand upon certain elements from the novel and other source material, such as Gandalf's investigation at Dol Guldur which leads him to the Necromancer, and the heroes' pursuit by the orcs Azog and Bolg, who seek vengeance against Thorin and his kindred.
The films feature an ensemble cast that includes James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace and Luke Evans, with several actors reprising their roles from The Lord of the Rings, including Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, and Andy Serkis. Other actors include Sylvester McCoy, Manu Bennett, Mikael Persbrandt, Lawrence Makoare, and Stephen Fry. Returning for production, among others, were illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee, art director Dan Hennah, cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, and composer Howard Shore, while props were again crafted by Wētā Workshop, with visual effects managed by Weta Digital.
The first film in the trilogy premiered at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington on 28 November 2012. 100,000 people lined the red carpet on Courtenay Place, and the entire event was broadcast live on television in New Zealand and streamed over the Internet. The second film of the series premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on 2 December 2013. The final film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 1 December 2014. The series received mixed reviews, but was a financial success and became one of the highest-grossing film series of all time, grossing over $2.9 billion worldwide. It was nominated for various awards and won several, although not as many as the original trilogy.
Films
An Unexpected Journey
The Desolation of Smaug
The Battle of the Five Armies
Development
First stages
Jackson and Walsh first expressed interest in doing The Hobbit in 1995, at that time envisioning it as the first of a trilogy (parts two and three would have been based on The Lord of the Rings). Frustration arose when Jackson's producer, Harvey Weinstein, discovered that Saul Zaentz had production rights to The Hobbit, but that distribution rights still belonged to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's United Artists (which had kept those rights, believing that filmmakers would prefer to adapt The Hobbit rather than The Lord of the Rings). The United Artists studio and its parent company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer were for sale in the mid-1990s, but the Weinsteins' attempts to buy the movie rights from United Artists were unsuccessful. Weinstein asked Jackson to go forward with adapting The Lord of the Rings. Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings was produced by New Line Cinema, not the Weinsteins, and their rights to film The Hobbit were set to expire in 2010. In September 2006, the new ownership and management of MGM, led by Harry Sloan expressed interest in teaming up with New Line and Jackson to make The Hobbit.
In March 2005, Jackson launched a lawsuit against New Line, claiming he had lost revenue from merchandising, video, and computer games releases associated with The Fellowship of the Ring. He did not seek a specific settlement, but requested an audit to see whether New Line had withheld money owed him. Although Jackson wanted it settled before he would make the film, he felt the lawsuit was minor and that New Line would still let him make The Hobbit. New Line co-founder Robert Shaye was annoyed with the lawsuit and said in January 2007 that Jackson would never again direct a film for New Line, accusing him of being greedy. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer halted development, as Sloan wanted Jackson to be involved. By August, after a string of flops, Shaye tried to repair his relationship with Jackson. He said, "I really respect and admire Peter and would love for him to be creatively involved in some way in The Hobbit." The following month, New Line was fined $125,000 for failing to provide requested accounting documents.
On 16 December 2007, New Line Cinema and MGM announced that Jackson would be executive producer of The Hobbit and its sequel. The two studios would co-finance the film and the latter studio (via 20th Century Fox) would distribute the film outside North America—New Line's first-ever such deal with another major studio. Each film's budget was estimated to be at $150 million, compared to the $94 million budget for each of the films in Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. After completion of the merger of New Line Cinema with Warner Bros. Pictures in February 2008, the two parts were announced as scheduled for release in December 2011 and December 2012. Producer Mark Ordesky, the executive producer of The Lord of the Rings, planned to return to supervise the prequels. Jackson explained he chose not to originally direct The Hobbit because it would have been unsatisfying to compete with his previous films.
In February 2008, the Tolkien Estate (through The Tolkien Trust, a British charity) and HarperCollins Publishers filed a suit against New Line for breach of contract and fraud and demanded $220 million in compensation for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The suit claimed New Line had only paid the Estate an upfront fee of $62,500, despite the trilogy's gross of an estimated $6 billion worldwide from box office receipts and merchandise sales. The suit claimed the Estate was entitled to 7.5% of all profits made by any Tolkien films, as established by prior deals. The lawsuit sought to block the filming of The Hobbit. It was later settled in September 2009 for an undisclosed amount. However the Tolkien Trust's 2009 accounts show that it received payment from New Line Cinema of £24 million (a little over US$38 million). This amount was the Trust's estimated share in respect of the gross profit participation due for the films based on "The Lord of the Rings". Christopher Tolkien said: "The trustees regret that legal action was necessary but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives. The trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed film of The Hobbit."
With del Toro
Despite the lawsuits, development continued to proceed and in April 2008, Guillermo del Toro was announced to direct the film. Del Toro has said he was a fan of Peter Jackson's trilogy and had discussed directing a film adaptation of Halo with Jackson in 2005. Though that project stalled, they kept in touch. In a 2006 interview, del Toro was quoted saying "I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits .... I don't like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff". After he signed on to direct in April 2008, del Toro posted on TheOneRing.net forums that he had been enchanted by The Hobbit as a child, but found that Tolkien's other books "contain[ed] geography and genealogy too complex for my prepubescent brain". In taking the job of director, del Toro was now "reading like a madman to catch up with a whole new land, a continent of sorts—a cosmology created by brilliant philologist turned Shaman". He wrote that his appreciation of Tolkien was enhanced by his knowledge of the fantasy genre, and the folklore research he had undertaken while making his own fantasy films.
Pre-production began around August 2008, with del Toro, Jackson, Walsh and Philippa Boyens writing the scripts. Del Toro collaborated with Jackson, Walsh and Boyens via videoconferencing and flew every three weeks, back and forth from Los Angeles (where some of the designs were done) to New Zealand to visit them. Del Toro spent his mornings writing and afternoons looking at material related to Tolkien to help him understand the writer's work. He watched World War I documentaries and asked book recommendations from Jackson, who is a collector of World War I memorabilia. Del Toro felt Tolkien's experiences in that war influenced his stories.
By November 2008, del Toro had said that he, Jackson, Walsh and Boyens would realize something new about the story every week and the script was continually changing. The writing hours increased to twelve each day, as they dedicated three weeks to finally deciding the films' structures. During the first few months of 2009, writing would start from 8:30 am and end at 3:00 pm when del Toro would meet with Weta (i.e., Wētā Workshop and Weta Digital film effects companies). Completion of the story outlines and treatments ended in March 2009 and the studios approved the start of writing the screenplay. Filming was expected to take place throughout 2010 in New Zealand, with del Toro renovating the Hobbiton sets near Matamata. For his part, Jackson had kept the Rivendell scale model and the Bag End set (which he has used as a guest house) from the trilogy. During the middle of the shoot, there was expected to be a break which would have allowed del Toro to edit The Hobbit while sets would be altered for the second film. The director expected the shoot to last 370 days.
Jackson revealed in late November 2009 that he anticipated that the script for The Hobbit would not be completed until the beginning of 2010, delaying the start of production until the middle of that summer, several months later than previously anticipated. The announcement created doubts about whether the film would make its previously announced release dates of December 2011 and December 2012. Jackson reiterated that no casting decisions had been made at the time. On 22 January 2010, Alan Horn said the first Hobbit film would likely not be released until the fourth quarter of 2012.
Del Toro's interpretation
Del Toro and Jackson had a positive working relationship, in which they compromised on disagreements for the benefit of the two Hobbit films. Del Toro believed he would be able to shoot the film himself, although Jackson noted he had similar hopes for filming all of his trilogy and offered to help as second unit director. Del Toro planned on shooting the film in the trilogy's 2.35:1 aspect ratio, rather than his signature 1.85:1 ratio. He hoped to collaborate again with cinematographer Guillermo Navarro.
Del Toro shares Jackson's passion for scale models and background paintings, though he wanted to increase the use of animatronics; "We really want to take the state-of-the-art animatronics and take a leap ten years into the future with the technology we will develop for the creatures in the movie. We have every intention to do for animatronics and special effects what the other films did for virtual reality." Spectral Motion (Hellboy, Fantastic Four) was among those del Toro wanted to work with again. Some characters would have been created by mixing computer-generated imagery with animatronics and some would have been created solely with animatronics or animation. Gollum would be entirely digital again; as del Toro noted, "if it ain't broke, why fix it?"