Film fans were delighted and befuddled by the recent announcement that THE HOBBIT, J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy book about the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, would be made into a trilogy by filmmaker Peter Jackson instead of being released as a pair of films as originally planned.
Shortly after Peter Jackson posted the news on his Facebook page, the Internet responded with mixed reactions. After all, THE HOBBIT is a much shorter tale than Tolkien’s three book epic, LORD OF THE RINGS. Is there really enough material to warrant a trilogy from a book less than a third the size of the tomes that inspired Jackson’s first trilogy? Or is this about squeezing as much money as possible from audiences?
We at rbb had our own heated discussions on this topic, some of us siding with Jackson’s decision, others taking a more suspicious perspective. As the debate rages, we created an infographic to put the numbers in perspective, illustrating just how valuable THE HOBBIT might be in this “page by page” comparison against its predecessors.