![\"THE](\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/THE-HOBBIT-FAKE-BOFA-TITLE-300x117.jpg\")
Well, that was a surprise.<\/p>\nWell, that was a surprise.<\/p>\n
Even following our spy report last week<\/a> that Warner Bros. (via New Line) had registered a new title for its trilogy of Hobbit films, I thought it unlikely they actually would follow through and make a change.<\/p>\n Mostly because There And Back Again seemed too established as a name and it seemed a bit irrational to toss away all that brand recognition.<\/p>\n On the other hand, it’s almost inarguable those two words The Hobbit are the true key that deliver all that goodwill (in an accounting sense) toward the films. And Warner Bros, with nothing more than the announcement of a mid-stream title change, have just scored the film millions of dollars worth of free editorial. That’s gold for any marketer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jokingly, one suggests they could simply re-brand the thing every few months all the way up till December.<\/p>\n Regardless, we are now full speed ahead<\/a> toward The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.<\/p>\n Jackson continues: <\/p>\n \nWhen we did the premiere trip late last year, I had a quiet conversation with the studio about the idea of revisiting the title. We decided to keep an open mind until a cut of the film was ready to look at. We reached that point last week, and after viewing the movie, we all agreed there is now one title that feels completely appropriate.<\/p>\n And so: “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” it is.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n No mention of Into The Fire.<\/p>\n However, note that both production team and Warner Bros. have been considering the issue since before Christmas. Which is a fair chunk of time to do a bunch of brainstorming and little bit of focus-group testing.<\/p>\n And this is what our spy suggested to us a few days could have been occurring. Clarifying the registration of the title, our spy told us:<\/p>\n \nI’m sure it’s WB’s marketing department braintrust rearranging the furniture because some focus group told them “There And Back Again” wasn’t testing dynamically enough. <\/p>\n Studios do this sort of thing all the time. That new Batman\/Superman movie has registered dozens of potential titles.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I suggest that, out of an undoubtedly longer of possibilities, the final choice boiled down to three options: the pre-existing There And Back Again, the previously registered The Battle of the Five Armies and Into The Fire, which was registered as recently as nine days ago, and prompted our fuss-causing spy report.<\/p>\n But, the fan reaction to Into The Fire proved overwhelmingly negative. Unflattering remarks and comparisons abounded in our comment threads on the front-page post<\/a>, on our Facebook account<\/a> and on the TORn messageboards<\/a>. Despite it obviously being a nod to a chapter title of The Hobbit novel (or perhaps because it felt too tenuous and generally a poor link).<\/p>\n Faced with an option that fans hated, and one that Jackson and his crew felt no longer fit the plot of the movie, there was only one alternative. And thus, today, we officially have The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s one theory that fits the known facts anyway.<\/p>\n Instead, There And Back Again will almost certainly be used for an eventual box-set release. Now there’s a piece of news that will surprise precisely no-one — expect a box-set of all three films (probably in Extended Edition format, like with LOTR) at some point.<\/p>\n Now that certainly is a fitting sub-title to encompass all three films, and this will perhaps placate the many folk who agitated to for the retention of There And Back Again.<\/p>\n The struggle for control of the dragon’s hoard almost certainly becomes the centrepiece of the film. Previously, some have speculated that it might not be too much bigger than whatever Jackson has planned for The White Council forcing Sauron from Dol Guldur. <\/p>\n Now I suspect the Dol Guldur battle will be short and sharp — which is more canonically consistent with Sauron’s feigned flight into the East as detailed in the The Lord of the Rings. <\/p>\n On the other hand, the Battle of the Five Armies will be an enormous and extended set-piece occupying a substantial portion of the film, and encompassing the lead-in negotiations, Bilbo’s betrayal of Thorin, the confrontation at the gate, the subsequent arrival of Dain (I really want to see a war-moose versus war-pig faceoff between Thranduil and Dain regardless of how silly it sounds) and only then<\/i> the battle itself. <\/p>\n Plus the tragic aftermath. <\/p>\n It probably also means that the journey home is truly little more than a coda. The last two chapters of Tolkien’s novel (The Return Journey and The Last Stage) are famously brief, but I wonder if the film might not almost directly cut to Bag End. I still hope to see tea with Balin, though.<\/p>\n Demosthenes has been an incredibly nerdy staff member at TheOneRing.net since 2001. The views (and wacky theories) in this article are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of the site, or of other TORn staff.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, that was a surprise. Even following our spy report last week that Warner Bros. (via New Line)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":88951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,4,153,1156,1287,74,498,148,2490,1911,1912,152,392],"tags":[1788],"class_list":["post-88970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbit-book","category-hobbit-movie","category-tolkien-life","category-mgm-production-studios-production","category-new-line-cinema-production-studios","category-jackson","category-production-studios","category-hobbit","category-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-five-armies","category-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug","category-the-hobbit-there-and-back-again","category-tolkien","category-warner-bros","tag-library"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/THE-HOBBIT-FAKE-BOFA-TITLE.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-n90","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88970"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88991,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88970\/revisions\/88991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Peter-Jackson-Doctor-Who\"](\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Peter-Jackson-Doctor-Who-300x153.jpg\")
Peter Jackson’s statement<\/a> suggests the production team felt that the name There And Back Again had become misplaced after the three-film split, and the events of The Desolation of Smaug. Thorin and company, as Jackson points out, are already There. (I did offer an alternative perspective on that just last week<\/a>, but it nevertheless seems a valid concern.)<\/p>\n![\"Legolas_Bard\"](\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Legolas_Bard-300x212.jpeg\")
Importantly, our spy added that Into The Fire was registered with an organisation that deals only with movies, and not video games, tv shows or books (and not even DVD\/Blu-ray extras). Thus we must conclude that as recently as last week, Into The Fire was in the mix as a potential title for the final Hobbit film.<\/p>\n![\"Battle](\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/FiveArmies-300x204.jpg\")
One last thought: as a title, The Battle of The Five Armies might also provide fans pointers as to content. <\/p>\n