Empire is king of the scoop today, because their 20th anniversary issue is guest-edited by Steven Spielberg. That’s how they got that Tintin photo, and it’s what led to this nugget of info: there will be no ‘bridge’ movie between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Speaking to Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson, the mag got two great quotes. Del Toro says “We’ve decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur,” which, since two movies are happening one way or the other, is a very good thing.
Jackson follows up. “We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy.” Empire doesn’t have a quote saying that there won’t be a ‘bridge’ film, but if they’re telling the story of The Hobbit in two movies, there’s no room left for more than a sequence or two to connect to the LotR series. And the film doesn’t even need that.
Now the arguing begins…where’s the break in the story to pause between movie one and two?