In a nutshell: no. In the early stages of their collaboration, PJ and GDT planned to film the events in the book The Hobbit as a stand-alone movie, with a second movie, or ‘bridge move’ as it became known, used to address events outside of the primary storyline of The Hobbit, continuing to where the Lord of the Rings movies pick up the story again. Fairly early on, however, they confirmed that it made much more sense to film the storyline of The Hobbit over the span of two films, addressing events outside the story at the same time. ill span both films. PJ: “We just decided it would be a mistake to cram everything into one movie.”