New Line Cinema and MGM Studios have made an agreement with Peter Jackson to produce The Hobbit and a sequel film over the next few years.
Jackson and Walsh envisioned the first film covering the events of “The Hobbit” and the second bridging the 80-year gap between that novel and the first “Lord of the Rings” book.
It was that vision that led MGM, which holds the film rights to the book and is looking for new movie franchises, to insist that Jackson and Walsh make the films.
“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.
I’m truly glad to learn that. There are those who from a Christian point of view have decried Jackson & Walsh’s treatment of LOTR, but I’ve always leaned in the opposite direction – that it’s amazing how much of the essence of Tolkien’s original remains intact in the hands of so many non-Christians.
O frabjous day!
The sequel film, I guess, will deal with the fall of Nuemenor. If not that, perhaps it will deal with Aragorn’s life before becoming a ranger.
Which reminds me, I still haven’t read The Children of Hurin. Got to get to that.
I’m not one who believes that Jackson and only Jackson can do justice to The Hobbit. But I am grateful to learn that he’s going to produce it. (Important note: He’s not directing these, as he did with LOTR.)
I’m also glad they’re doing it in two pieces. Even if you pare down all of the “…and then the rode down the trail some more, ate some waybread, sang some songs, and smoked their pipes…” bits, there’s too much action in The Hobbit to fit into a single movie–even a three-hour movie.
I didn’t read the news as saying it would be a two-part story, but two stories, The Hobbit and another one. “Jackson and Walsh envisioned the first film covering the events of The Hobbit and the second bridging the 80-year gap between that novel and the first Lord of the Rings book.”