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Peter Jackson Could Shoot Even More Footage For The Hobbit

Those lucky enough to make into Warner Bros.' panel at the San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday were treated to some footage from the upcoming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but Peter Jackson saved yet another surprise for after the panel and press conference: The Hobbit could become a trilogy.

Speaking with ComingSoon, Jackson revealed that he and his wife and co-writer Fran Walsh are talking to Warners and trying to convince them to allow even more footage to be shot. The duo plans on utilizing additional notes from J.R.R. Tolkien that "expand the world" of The Hobbit and, ultimately, split 2013's The Hobbit: There and Back Again into two parts. They would include, amongst other things, explaining why Gandalf disappears for a little while. While Jackson says the possibility is "very premature," the director spoke at length about the prospect, admitting that "I don't want to make a children's story to go into The Lord of the Rings."

It's very premature. I mean we have an incredible source material with the appendices because The Hobbit is obviously a novel but we also have the rights to use this 125 pages of additional notes where Tolkien expanded the world of The Hobbit published at the end of Return of the King and we've used some of it so far and just in the last few weeks as we've been wrapping up the shooting and thinking about the shape of the story, Fran and I have been talking to the studio about other things we haven't been able to shoot and seeing if we persuade them to do a few more weeks of shooting, probably more than a few weeks actually, next year. And what form that would actually end up taking, well the discussions are pretty early. So there isn't really anything to report but there's other parts of the story that we'd like to tell that we haven't been able to tell yet.

We've used more source material than The Hobbit. For instance in The Hobbit when Gandalf (Iam McKellen) mysteriously disappears for chapters, it was never really explained where he's gone. Much later Tolkien filled in those details. In these appendices he did talk about what happened. And it was all together a lot darker and more serious than what is written in The Hobbit. And also, to be honest, I want to make a series of movies that run together so if any crazy lunatic wants to watch them all in a row there will be a consistency to it, a consistency of tone.

So I don't want to make a children's story to go into The Lord of the Rings, so we are providing a balance. I mean a lot of the comedy and the charm comes from the characters. You're dealing with Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) who is a bit more reluctant to go on an adventure than Frodo was, and with Dwarves who have a personality and camaraderie all of their own, so there's a lot of humor but there are still some serious themes involved.

While it might seem crazy for a studio to deny Jackson the opportunity to shoot more and create a trilogy of movies out of The Hobbit, production on both An Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again took 266 days. With both parts of the movie already set for release in December of this year and next, the studio may be fearful that the logistics in allowing more shooting might affect There and Back Again's ability to make its release date.

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