Why Isn’t ‘The Hobbit’ Shooting Yet?

Robert Greenberger

Robert Greenberger is best known to comics fans as the editor of Who's Who In The DC Universe, Suicide Squad, and Doom Patrol. He's written and edited several Star Trek novels and is the author of The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. He's known for his work as an editor for Comics Scene, Starlog, and Weekly World News, as well as holding executive positions at both Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

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6 Responses

  1. Brandon Barrows says:

    You’d think for a guaranteed cash-cow like The Hobbit, they could find the money somewhere to move forward. I guess I just don’t understand how Hollywood works.

    • mike weber says:

      I suspect the studio is looking at other “guaranteed cash cows” – i think, for instance, that the “Narnia” films (at least the second) were a touch disappointing, and let us not even discuss “The Golden Compass” and “The Dark is Rising” – which didn’t live up to expectations.

      • Allyn Gibson says:

        Kristen Thompson’s The Frodo Franchise is one of the most interesting books on the Lord of the Rings films I’ve read; rather than a strict making-of book or a behind-the-scenes look, the book analyzes the way the films were marketed. (The book still has the standard “Here’s how the script developed,” “Here’s how casting went,” that sort of thing, but the focus is more on how Peter Jackson saw “franchise.”) One of the things that I got out of the book was this – the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but more especially Fellowship, were successful and blockbusters because they were the right films at the right time. The development of online communities, the DVD plans, the video games – five years earlier and the films wouldn’t have had these, five years later and someone else would have done them first. The Hobbit films will likely be big, but they won’t be the game-changers that Fellowship of the Ring was.

  2. Brandon Barrows says:

    You'd think for a guaranteed cash-cow like The Hobbit, they could find the money somewhere to move forward. I guess I just don't understand how Hollywood works.

    • mike weber says:

      I suspect the studio is looking at other "guaranteed cash cows" – i think, for instance, that the "Narnia" films (at least the second) were a touch disappointing, and let us not even discuss "The Golden Compass" and "The Dark is Rising" – which didn't live up to expectations.

      • Allyn Gibson says:

        Kristen Thompson's The Frodo Franchise is one of the most interesting books on the Lord of the Rings films I've read; rather than a strict making-of book or a behind-the-scenes look, the book analyzes the way the films were marketed. (The book still has the standard "Here's how the script developed," "Here's how casting went," that sort of thing, but the focus is more on how Peter Jackson saw "franchise.") One of the things that I got out of the book was this – the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but more especially Fellowship, were successful and blockbusters because they were the right films at the right time. The development of online communities, the DVD plans, the video games – five years earlier and the films wouldn't have had these, five years later and someone else would have done them first. The Hobbit films will likely be big, but they won't be the game-changers that Fellowship of the Ring was.