'The Hobbit' trilogy ends on July 28th 2014; 2nd film gets retitled

Now that Peter Jackson has officially turned his The Hobbit series into a trilogy, he's doing all of his fans of the Shire a major solid by not forcing them to wait an extra year to see the whole thing wrap up. It's now been confirmed that the final leg of the trilogy will be released on July 28th 2014, under the title of The Hobbit: There and Back Again.  Confused? Well, don't be.

Obviously, with the addition of a new film the middle chapter no longer makes sense to hold that title, since the adventure's far from over. Instead, the second film has now been retitled The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and retains the December 13th 2013 release date. The first film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hasn't been affected and will open this year on December 14th. It should be noted that the title change was expected due to the domain name being registered late in July.

So what's the deal with the shortened gap in-between the final two movies? Dan Fellman of Warner Bros. reveals their motivations...

“We wanted to have a shorter gap between the second and third films of The Hobbit Trilogy. Opening in July affords us not only the perfect summer tentpole, but fans will have less time to wait for the finale of this epic adventure.”

Hard to argue his point. This would be the first of any the Lord of the Rings movies to open during the summer season, as all previous have come out during the December months. So it'll be interesting to see how it fares against other blockbuster competition, rather than late season dramas. Plus, with the previous two movies already in the can, Jackson has more time to prepare before filming begins next summer, so he may not need the extra year's worth of time to get the movie ready and into theaters.