Comment on 'The Hobbit' May Extend to Become a Trilogy

If you can't get enough of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and trolls, we have good news for you. A fan site has heard "a report that negotiations are under way for a third film," meaning that The Hobbit, already slated to be released as two separate pictures, may be extended to become a trilogy. An anonymous source told TheOneRing.net that the main sticking points are the contracts for Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro to allow for three more months of principal photography and "temporarily suspending some of their other projects." The same source speculates that the third film would delve "into the back-story of the Istari (Wizards) including Gandalf and Saruman's youth in Valinor." Our own Elisabeth Rappe previously wrote about the desire of seemingly every Lord of the Rings actor to appear in The Hobbit, and this rumor might allow for that. Del Toro has spoken about The Hobbit as "two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative," so maybe the story has become so rich and complicated that he and Jackson don't want it to ever end (kind of like the concluding hour of The Return of the King).