HispanicBusiness

Good news for fans of The Hobbit, the fantasy series by The Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien.

According to The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, the long-planned movie franchise based on the classic book has been expanded to three movies, series architect Peter Jackson has announced.

The first film in The Lord of the Rings prequel will hit theatres in December with the second installment due a year later and the third film following in the summer of 2014.

The films star Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Andy Serkis as Smigel, and, in smaller roles, Elijah Wood as Frodo and Orlando Bloom as Legolas.

Jackson said that restricting the tale to two movies would leave large parts of the narrative untold.

"We recognized that the richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some of the related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, gave rise to a simple question: do we tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as filmmakers and fans was an unreserved 'yes.'"