The third film in The Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: There and Back Again will indeed be a long expected journey as Warner Bros. announces the release date will be set back by five months. Deadline reports the new movie, which was set to hit cinemas on July 18, 2014, will now premier on December 17, 2014. Deadline notes the delayed release date prevents The Hobbit: There and Back Again from competing for box office takings with the new X-Men movie, X -Men: Days of Future Past .
According to Entertainment Weekly , Warner Bros. had previously intended the third Hobbit movie to be released in December 2014. In August last year Warner Bros. changed the December release plan to July stating , “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.”
The first Hobbit movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released in December last year and has so far topped $979.9 million in worldwide figures and $300.9 million in the United States, putting it just behind Skyfall , which grossed $303 million in US cinemas. An Unexpected Journey will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 19, 2013. The second film in the Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug will be released on December, 13 2013 and similar box office numbers are expected.
With The Hobbit: There and Back Again moving to a later release date, Peter Jackson’s entire Middle Earth saga, including the three Lord of the Rings films and the first two installments of The Hobbit trilogy, will see December releases, bringing a sense of cohesion to the two film trilogies.