Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” will be three times the fun. Originally slated to be only two films, Jackson and his production companies announced on Monday that there would indeed be a third film in the series. “Upon recently viewing a cut of the first film, and a chunk of the second, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and I were very pleased with the way the story was coming together,” Jackson said in a statement. “We recognized that 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, gave rise to a simple question: do we tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as filmmakers and fans was an unreserved ‘yes.'” The first in the now triology is set to be released on Dec. 14 of this year, with the second in Dec. 2013 and the third now in summer of 2014.
