Peter Jackson just can't abandon Middle Earth....

    To anyone who knows Peter Jackson and his affiliation with Middle Earth, he has a slight problem letting go.  In all the three of The Lord of the Rings pictures, he shot extra footage after the movie came out for the extended cuts of the films.  (And yes I bought both.)  In fact he has the distinction of being the only director ever to add footage to a film that had already won the Academy Award for Best Picture (The Lord of the Rings:  The Return of the King.)
     That's why the following news from "Omelete" and "Collider" comes as no shock to me.  This week at Comic-Con* Peter Jackson stated he probably will shoot extra footage for The Hobbit films.  However, he wasn't definitive on the time frame.  After all he has some massive hours to spend in the cutting room before the first film debuts in December.  Because of Jackson's Hollywood pull and the success of the Extended Cuts of his previous ventures into Middle Earth, the chances are probably 99.999% that these follow-up shoots are going to happen.
     Then Jackson dropped a bomb shell.
     Peter told the panel that the extra footage would either be used to 1) extend the cut of the two films either in theaters or later on DVD and Blu-Ray or 2) a THIRD PART ENTIRELY.
     Whhaaaa??  Whaaaa?
     Does this mean The Hobbit  will be split into three parts instead of two?  I sincerely hope not because the word "overkill" comes to mind.  After all we are talking about a book that's only about 350 pages long.  I'm just as excited as anyone else to see the extra parts that Jackson puts in the movie that were only hinted at in Tolkien's books, however there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  I don't want the story to be dragged away from Bilbo.  This is essentially Bilbo Baggins' (Martin Freeman) story.  The focus needs to be on him. 
     The Hobbit: A Unexpected Journey opens December 14, 2012
     The Hobbit:  There and Back Again opens December 13, 2013

*I would absolutely love to go to Comic-Con some day but there's no way I'd ever dress up.....or would I?