While a couple of months ago it was confirmed The Hobbit was changing from being two movies to three, we didn’t know when the third film would be released, or which of the films was getting a new title. Now we know, as Warner Bros has released a statement, saying that the final film will be titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again (which was previously what the second film was going to be called), and will be released worldwide on July 18th, 2014.
The studio also announced the title of the second installment in the franchise will be The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and will keep its release date on December 13th, 2013. The first film in the trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opens December 14th, 2012.
Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures, stated, “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.”
Some fans will undoubtedly still feel adding a third film is just a cash-grab, but we’ll have to wait and see whether it works.