Peter Jacksons’ “The Hobbit” trilogy has been met with a hefty amount of criticism (for using a higher frames-per-second rate in the films and splitting the book into three parts), but the director is standing by his films and his choices.
“The Hobbit is written in a series of chapters that feel almost like they’re designed to be read to your son a daughter at night,” the director told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s got that episodic, rip-roaring adventure quality to it.”
Martin Freeman, who plays a young Bilbo Baggins, admitted that he was at first perplexed when the director said he would be expanding the story into three parts.
“At first, I must say, I was like, ‘Why?’” the actor told the mag. “You kind of think, ‘I’ve already put this much of my life into two movies. What am I going to do now – not put it into three?’ In for a penny, in for a pound.”
And what about the early reviews (some have raved about the first film, while others took issue with certain aspects of it)?
“[Reading reviews is] a suicide mission… If I read one bad thing about me — it can be one person’s opinion in Idaho — I’m like, ‘Jesus, why does everyone hate me?’” Martin explained. “If you read four of those, you think, ‘Everyone in the solar system hates me!’ Then even if you read 80 people saying, ‘I think he’s wonderful and I really want to [expletive] him,’ you’re still thinking, ‘But that person in Idaho…’ ”
Adding, “In short, I don’t really seek out ‘The Hobbit’ stuff.”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters on December 14, 2012, followed by “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” on December 13, 2013 and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” on July 18, 2014.
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