Third Film In The Hobbit Trilogy Worryingly Has No Budget Or Script

With the third instalment of The Hobbit greenlit only a couple of days ago, any sane/sentient person would have assumed that the film would have a script and a budget estimate to go along with it. Unfortunately, now we’re hearing that the third film of The Hobbit has neither, the filmmakers have an idea of what they want to do, but they don’t know the exact details or how much it will cost.

Despite the fact there isn’t anything that Peter Jackson and the rest of team have to go on in terms of material, all of the creatives are very much on board and do want to work together again:

“If anybody had been a big hindrance, it wouldn’t have happened. It was such a short window of time to make this decision, if anybody had said no, it would have been two movies, said a source close to the production.”

The cast were due back on set again in June 2013 anyway to shoot some pick up shots for the second of The Hobbit films and that shooting period will now be extended for an extra two months to accommodate for the third film.

While Jackson, Phillippa Boyens and Fran Walsh have a good 10 months to put together a script for the film, I still find it shocking that the executives went ahead with the project.

Even New Line Cinema president Toby Emmerich admits they greenlit the project with only faith in Jackson as their reason for go ahead:

Everyone involved had to make a grand leap of faith. As cynics have pointed out, The Hobbit is not an exceptionally long book, but Peter has phenomenal creative integrity and truly believes this is the best way to tell the story. We all had to trust each other, and Peter, and we sincerely believe it will be great.

I find it slightly convenient that The Hobbit is being co-financed by MGM, who were on the verge of bankruptcy a few years ago. It may have been a creative decision to make a third film but one can’t get over the fact that the material is thin and that there is still no script. The studio simply bought Jackson’s idea knowing they could do it but without thinking if it would make sense.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will open on December 14th, with The Hobbit: There and Back Again opening a year later. The third and final film in the trilogy is tentatively set for Summer 2014.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter