Two Possible Names For The Third Hobbit Film Registered And Revealed, Unless…

It seems that Jackson, Warner Bros. and the full furry-feet team have registered a couple of possible titles for their third Hobbit picture while they make up their mind which of them will be best.

Both of the possible options has been claimed in a few URL variants by Mark Monitor, the company who registered the other Hobbit domains for the producers. Fusible spotted the registrations just before the weekend.

The two options are Riddles in the Dark and The Desolation of Smaug.

I feel that the latter would make most sense as the title of a third film, as it refers to the area around Smaug’s lair in the Lonely Mountain, somewhere that the Dragon has destroyed and left, well, desolate. This would likely have to be the second of the three films, relative to where the location appears in the overall narrative.

Less literally appropriate to a third film would be Riddles in the Dark, the name of the fifth chapter in the book. These scenes take place during the narrative span of The Unexpected Journey, at least as it stands, and a sequence from this chapter was played, in at least nearly-finished form at Comic-Con this month.

So, given this, it’s possible that these aren’t potential names for the third film. Perhaps they’ll be part of a marketing viral; perhaps they’ll be the names of some kind of ancillary product – video games maybe; or perhaps the tiny expenditure needed to claim these URLs was spent pre-emptively to scare off cyber squatters.

They are going to need a title for the third film at some point. For now, I’m going to gamble on The Desolation of Smaug. Fits well, sounds dramatic, and leaves The Battle of Five Armies to take centre stage in the third picture.

It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie — and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.'

We know how much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance. The richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some of the related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, allows us to tell the full story of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the part he played in the sometimes dangerous, but at all times exciting, history of Middle-earth.

So, without further ado and on behalf of New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wingnut Films, and the entire cast and crew of "The Hobbit" films, I'd like to announce that two films will become three.

It has been an unexpected journey indeed, and in the words of Professor Tolkien himself, "a tale that grew in the telling."

Cheers,

Peter J