Yea, splitting the story effectively doubles your revenue, especially with a film like this thats pretty much a guaranteed money maker.
And given that the LOTR films were making in the billion dollar range, thats a lot of money to leave on the table by not trying to split it into two films.
I don’t mind this since it’s being done for book adaptions, which take more time to properly convey. Some could easily have enough material for a miniseries so a mere two movies doesn’t shake my sensibilities.
This is not a new problem. The film version of most stage plays, for instance, back when films were 90 minutes to 2 hours, and stage plays were longer. Thus, the film version of most 1950s musicals cuts out a lot of the songs (expanding the plot but cutting the songs, seems screwey to me, but then.)
Yes, sure, books are often cut down to make a 2-hour movie, and sometimes it’s easy to figure what subplots and what characters to cut. Fans of the book can disagree, of course, but the producers/directors/scriptwriters usually consider the general audience in determining what to chop. It’s easiest in stories that are episodal; think of THE ODYSSEY. One could cut any of the various adventures, and still have a reasonable movie. Similarly for THE HOBBIT, which is basly episodal. One could easily cut the trolls, Beorn, the spiders of Mirkwood, capture by the elves, etc. The only bits one needs are the Unexpected Party (to launch the movie), Gollum (since Bilbo being invisible is critical), Smaug and the Battle.
I admire the decision NOT to cut, but to try to film as much of the book as they can.
On 3-D, I can take it or leave it. There will always be a 2-D version, although one might have to wait for DVD. To me, it’s like Surround-Sound or Panavision or a music score or any other technique in movies: it can be done well, it can be done poorly. There’s been some discussion of colour in this thread, and I put forth the example of Hitchcock’s PSYCHO and that idiotic colour re-do in 1999. Hitchcock used black and white brilliantly; the colour version was distracting and unfocused and hard on the eyes. So, my only question about 3-D is whether it’s done well (I think TOY STORY 3 is a fine example) or whether it’s done in a way that detracts and distracts.
Well, Lord of the Rings came out in three parts. Like the book, in that case. It easily could have been six parts, following Tolkien’s own internal division, except nobody was going to underwrite that at the time.
Sure, not every detail needs to be in a movie–but there’s no reason to cut down Tolkien, except to make it marketable to a mass audience accustomed to two-hour movies at most.
The Hobbit is a third of the length of the LotR, it follows only 1 character path instead of 2.5 (Frodo/Sam, Aragon/Legolas/Gimli, Merry,Pippin) and it requires almost no back story. It’s a simple adventure/fairy tale and not an epic struggle between good and evil.
Like a lot of Tolkien’s writing, it’s filled with walking or landscape descriptions. Things that lend themselves very well to film and that wont require a lot of time to communicate to the audience. I really don’t see why this needs to be stretched out to 2 films.
To be clear, I’m arguing that it’s not being “stretched” at all–it’s just not being as compressed as book-to-movie adaptations typically are.
The LotR films were compressed.
To be fair, they are reportedly including a lot of additional material that was in other Tolkien works to connect The Hobbit more directly to The Lord of the Rings, and foreshadow the other three films.
Have you any idea what material?
What reports have you read? And where?
I am not the person to ask, so consider all this unreliable and second-hand, with reports from a long time ago:
I read that parts of the Silmarillion section “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” was going to be used to expand The Hobbit to provide more back-story.
Seriously though, I’ve seen the movies and last read the books 30 years ago. Not the person to ask.
I say we beat him up and steal his lunch money.
Yeah, Ive heard rumours too. Things like the assault on Dol Guldur, Gandalfs chance meeting in Bree with Thorin, trying to link the movie to the Lord of the Rings. Hell for all we know they`ll thrown in Balin wandering off to Moria and getting slaughtered by orcs.
All these male dwarves, hobbits and men.
Where is the Love Interest?
Not going to throw in Bilbo’s girlfriend who was secretly the 14th member of what otherwise is nothing but a sausage fest, but who then gets tragically killed by Smaug?
It would be possible to introduce a few female characters: no reason all the dwarves need to be male, for instance. I’ve always thought Fili and Kili were feminine-sounding names. And Bard would be an interesting character to be played by a female. Or use a female to voice Smaug, say. So, it would be possible, but would have lots of fans screaming bloody mordor.
[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven]
So, it would be possible, but would have lots of fans screaming bloody mordor.
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winces
All of this talk of 2D, 3D, femD, Wizard of D? Who cares?
I want to know who’s going to play Thranduil. I think they should be consistent with the R&B version and get Ahnold.
Rumour has it that it may be David Tennant.
I don’t get all this wailing and gnashing of teeth over the 3-D thing. Og Almighty, Jackson and Del-toro are in on it, and after the care they demonstrated in other films I hardly think they;d allow a shitty version of the film to be released in the name of 3-d.
Release dates are announced: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/30/the-hobbit-films-get-release-dates/
Casting is looking pretty complete. Still to be cast: Bard and Smaug. However, actor Benedict Cumberbatch has just joined the cast and rumor has it that he’s to be voice of Smaug. Urged on by the 'Raffers, I just watched my first episode of Sherlock and have to say that I love BC’s voice and if the rumors are true, I think it’s a good choice.
Stephen Fry’s to be Master of Laketown. Yay!