I like it, and I'm looking forward to yet another great adventure.

AWESOME

Rumors say the first teaser trailer will be attached to Man Of Steel

I cannot wait!

Not just a rumor.

Cool poster.

Love it! The first film was incredibly entertaining. This should be no different.

COMFIRMED: Trailer on Tuesday

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=37770

YES, finally we get to see the damn dragon. Hobbit "undeperformed" because it looked too much like Lord of the Rings, there was nothing new in the trailers. The dragon will be a HUGE selling point.

Nah, it underperformed because it was plodding and padded. And as much as I loved the LOTR trilogy, even the extended version, there were points in that which could have used editing (especially the ending(s)). I'm the target audience for The Hobbit, and I was disappointed, so I can imagine the average filmgoer wasn't that happy.

Ok but that doesn't explain the film's underwhelming opening. It actually had really good legs, especially internationally, which suggests the film was well received.

Looking epic yo

I am looking forward to seeing Smaug.

Is it too late to get rid of Martin Freeman?

Not if Peter Jackson becomes convinced eleventh-hour CG star replacement is the next big craze, and he gets to be its visionary first disciple.

That might give us a young Ian Holm. He has my vote.

Martin Freeman is great in the role. I had my doubts before the first one, but I couldn't imagine anyone else in the role now.

You must be one of 2% of the audiences who didn't like Freeman in the role. I wasn't happy about a lot of things in The Hobbit, but Freeman was one of the best things about it. Perfect Bilbo.

Possible.

TRAILER IS OUT! AND THERE IS A DRAGON!

So did it really underperform? Did it earn less than expected overall (not counting the opening weekend)?

Some would want you to believe so.

Which is why I'm predicting a larger opening for Hobbit2.

In 2001 dollars it adjusts to 214m which is 100m less than Fellowship, so I'd say yeah. It still did 1B+ globally so obviously a very profitable, successful film, but probably not as much as WB/New Line anticipated. I think the reasons it decreased were 1) The Hobbit as a book is not as popular as Lord of the Rings, this is what killed the Narnia franchise, 2) it's a prequel and none of the characters present in this are in any real way changed in Lord of the Rings, it's not like Star Wars where we had no idea how Darth Vader came to be or whatnot, there's no real mystery or intrigue, 3) Bilbo was a small part of LOTR and this shows he's just not that popular/relevant to carry a film, it would be like making an X-Men prequel without Wolverine and expecting it do do as well as the first 3 films,

4) it looked way less epic, the stakes were a lot lower and most importantly: nothing new was presented. Nothing at all. No dragon, no new races of Middle Earth, not even new locations. All we got were scenes of the Shire, Rivendell and random caves/countryside characters we had already met and knew their full story arcs, etc. There was nothing new for audiences that they hadn't already seen. Add in middling reviews and it was never going to be as big as LOTR.