While nothing would make me happier than to know this is all in fact true, part of me wonders how they could manage to stretch a book that is less than half the length of just one of the LOTR trilogy books into two movies. Whereas in LOTR they had to cut a lot out to get the story to fit into three 3-1/2 hour movies, they’d almost have to make up a few new scenes to pack into a The Hobbit double feature, just to act as filler. I think trying to make the Hobbit into two movies will make the pacing seem completely inconsistent with LOTR at the very least, and at most, it will make for two movies that have lots of slow moments. The only way I could see them pull it off is if they made each movie no more than 2 hours long, but some fans of the LOTR might be a bit disappointed, being accustomed to the extra-long movies of the LOTR Trilogy.

I think MGM has a guaranteed winner on their hands with this, regardless of whether they get Peter Jackson on board or not, but without Jackson, I worry that it’ll get butchered. The last thing I want to see is a crappy Hollywood-ized version of the Hobbit, and after the cinematic masterpiece that was the LOTR, viewers expectations are going to be pretty high. In any case, if this news is true, here’s one Tolkien fan that will be going to see it opening night.