Peter Jackson has decided to return to Middle Earth for not two, but three, The Hobbit movies.  Why settle for just The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again when you can have a whole prequel trilogy as a companion to The Lord of the Rings?  That seems to be Jackson's thought process as he and production partner Fran Walsh are currently sorting out the logistics of a third film along with screenwriter and producer, Philippa Boyens (The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Jackson had previously teased the idea at Comic-Con, but now the director is reportedly in serious discussions with Warner Bros. to get them on board for the trilogy.  Hit the jump for more details.

Heat Vision is

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reporting that Jackson conclusively wants to turn The Hobbit into a trilogy.  Warner Bros. currently has no comment on the discussions taking place, but their sources say the studio is on board as long as certain financial obligations work out, such as securing particular rights to the property and extending contracts with the various talent.  Logistically, a decision will have to be made soon owing to the contractual wrangling that must take place, as well as working out the necessaries for additional shoots expected to occur in New Zealand next summer.  The source also claims that the decision to turn The Hobbit into a trilogy comes from Jackson's desire to expand the story and from his eagerness to use the impressive and expansive cast to get more of Tolkien's beloved work on film.

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When it was first announced that The Hobbit would be released in two parts (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on December 14th of this year with The Hobbit: There and Back Again on December 13th, 2013), many fans were understandably confused, as Tolkien's introductory tome is rather brief, compared to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  However, it looks like Jackson is interested in telling Tolkien's tales from the appendices as well, bringing in characters that don't necessarily appear in The Hobbit.  Here's what Jackson had to say about it in a previous interview (via Deadline):

…we haven’t just adapted The Hobbit; we’ve adapted that book plus great chunks of his appendices and woven it all together. The movie explains where Gandalf goes; the book never does. We’ve explained it using Tolkien’s own notes. That helped inform the tone of the movie, because it allowed us to pull in material he wrote in The Lord of the Rings era and incorporate it with The Hobbit. So we kept the charm and the whimsy of the fairy tale quality through the characters. Through the dwarves and Bilbo, who is more of a humorous character. He doesn’t try to be funny but we find him funny and find his predicament more amusing than that of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. That was more serious. So the whimsy is there, but tonally I wanted to make it as similar to The Lord of the Rings, because I wanted it to be possible for the people, the crazy people in the world who want to watch these films back to back one day…

So, crazy people, would you be excited for a potential The Hobbit trilogy that bridges the gap between it and The Lord of the Rings trilogy?  Or do you think the franchise might suffer the Star Wars syndrome? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for developing news.

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