Peter Jackson’s Original The Hobbit Plan Would’ve Been So Much Better (But Might Have Ruined Lord Of The Rings)

Peter Jackson hadn’t initially planned on a trilogy for The Hobbit, but his planned approach might have ruined The Lord of the Rings. The famed director made it big with his screen adaptations of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s works when he was still relatively new to the game, and the Lord of the Rings films will forever be his legacy. Unfortunately, Jackson’s The Hobbit movies failed to make the same level of impact. Breaking Tolkien’s novel into three full movies was an unpopular decision, but as it turns out, this hadn’t been the director’s initial plan.

In an interview (via Screen Rant), Lord of the Rings actor John Rhys-Davies discussed how new Peter Jackson was to the game when he was cast to play Gimli in the director’s Fellowship of the Ring movie. This had led Rhys-Davies to believe that the 2003 movie would be a flop, leaving the next two to go either unmade or released directly to video. Of course, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was a massive hit, but Rhys-Davies wasn’t the only one with doubts. The director had to work hard to get a trilogy made, and his original pitch was very different.

Peter Jackson Almost Made The Hobbit Before Lord Of The Rings

Jackson made his Lord of the Rings movies with New Line Cinema, whose executives were eager to see Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, each made into their own movie. However, prior to coming to a deal with Jackson, the director had pitched his idea to Miramax Films’ Harvey Weinstein. According to Jackson (via IndieWire), this pitch had initially involved making The Hobbit into a movie first. If Bilbo’s story performed well, he planned to create two Lord of the Rings movies covering the rest of Tolkien’s books.

Though Miramax Films was interested in Jackson’s idea, Weinstein only wanted one Lord of the Rings movie, thus minimizing the risk of investing in a trilogy. Unhappy with this idea, Jackson began taking his ideas to other production companies until New Line Cinema agreed with the director’s plan for three movies. However, rather than starting with The Hobbit, which would be challenging to obtain the rights for, it was determined that the three movies would be dedicated to the Lord of the Rings books only.

The Hobbit Would Have Been Better As A Single Film

Peter Jackson’s Decision To Break The Hobbit Into Three Movies Was Divisive

The Hobbit movies were technically massive successes, bringing in a combined $2.92 billion at the global box office. However, critically, the trilogy’s success is far more debatable. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey only managed 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, and while Desolation of Smaug did a little better at 75%, The Battle of Five Armies came in at a franchise low of 59%. Many of the lower reviews from critics cite a similar problem—Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy was overly bloated with needless content.

Tolkien’s The Hobbit book was relatively short and to the point, with only about 300 pages (depending on the print). Jackson’s decision to break Bilbo’s story into three parts was highly divisive since it required adding several details, characters, and scenes that had never been in the book. It felt like the director was trying too hard to duplicate his success with The Lord of the Rings, and this kind of pandering didn’t sit well with many. This makes the news that Jackson had initially planned to make The Hobbit a single movie all the more frustrating since it likely would have been better.

The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy Might Not Have Happened If The Hobbit Failed

Though a single Hobbit movie would likely have been far better than what we got, there would also be some downsides. Jackson’s original pitch for The Lord of the Rings was dependent on The Hobbit doing well. Bilbo’s story is of a significantly different tone than Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy. It lacked the darker themes, and the iconic battles of the War of the Ring were far less prevalent. Therefore, it’s possible that a Hobbit movie would have been disregarded as another fantasy movie for children.

Even if Jackson gained enough attention for The Hobbit to make The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the knowledge that it was a sequel to the child-like story might have limited the type of audience that would turn out to theaters. One of the reasons so many people assumed that Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies would fail was because fantasy movies didn’t typically perform well, with only a few exceptions. While a Hobbit movie would have been great, it wouldn’t be worth risking the massive success that was the Lord of the Rings movies.

Why Peter Jackson’s Original The Hobbit Plan Didn’t Work Out

The Rights For Tolkien’s The Hobbit Were More Complicated Before The Lord Of The Rings Movies

Unlike Miramax Films, New Line Cinema was excited about the concept of bringing all three Lord of the Rings books to the screen in their own films, but that didn’t necessarily mean that The Hobbit couldn’t have been part of this equation. If Jackson had really stuck to his guns, he might have been able to convince the production company to do Tolkien’s first novel set in Middle-earth as well. However, given the complicated legal rights for the story of The Hobbit, this would have been difficult even if New Line got on board.

Leading up to the turn of the century, film producer Saul Zaentz owned the rights to The Lord of the Rings, and Jackson knew he could get access this way. However, while Zaentz owned some of the rights to The Hobbit, MGM owned the rest, which made adapting Bilbo’s story in its entirety complicated. Initially, Miramax Films attempted to purchase these rights but was unsuccessful, and Jackson didn’t press the issue when he wound up teaming up with New Line. It wasn’t until after the Lord of the Rings movies proved themselves successful that MGM shared its Hobbit rights.

After MGM joined forces with New Line, Jackson was finally free to make the Hobbit movie he had first tried to make in the 1990s. Of course, it was in the form of a trilogy rather than a single film. As fun as it is to imagine what one The Hobbit movie would have been like, there are simply too many what-ifs. In the end, it can’t be denied that Jackson had great financial success from both his Lord of the Rings trilogies, so the way everything worked out was likely for the best.