Warner Bros and MGM Pictures jointly announced today that the final film in Peter Jackson’s trilogy adaptation of the JRR Tolkien novel is now titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again. It will be released worldwide on July 18, 2014. All three films in the trilogy are productions of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. The Studios also announced the title of the second installment in the franchise, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which will be released on December 13, 2013. The first film in the trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opens this holiday season on December 14, 2012. Under Jackson’s direction, all three movies are being shot in digital 3D using the latest camera and stereo technology. Additional filming, as with principal photography, is taking place at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.Shot in 3D 48 frames-per-second, the film trilogy will be released in High Frame Rate (HFR) 3D, other 3D formats, IMAX, and 2D.
Dan Fellman, Warner Bros Pictures President of Domestic Distribution said in a statement, “We wanted to have a shorter gap between the second and third films of The Hobbit Trilogy. Opening in July affords us not only the perfect summer tentpole, but fans will have less time to wait for the finale of this epic adventure.”
Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, Warner Bros Pictures President of International Distribution, added, “The Hobbit: There and Back Again opening in the summer will maximize playability for what promises to be an event film for fans the world over.”
The trilogy is set in Middle-earth 60 years before Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen and whose 3rd installment won the Best Picture Oscar. The screenplay for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is credited to Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro. Jackson is also producing the films, together with Carolynne Cunningham, Zane Weiner and Fran Walsh. The executive producers are Alan Horn, Toby Emmerich, Ken Kamins, and Carolyn Blackwood, with Boyens and Eileen Moran serving as co-producers. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the two remaining films in the trilogy are productions of New Line Cinema and MGM Pictures, with New Line managing production. Warner Bros Pictures is handling worldwide theatrical distribution, with select international territories as well as all international television licensing being handled by MGM