There are four movies coming out this holiday season that are poised to bring in big stockings of cash for Hollywood, yet people only seemed to be hyped on three of them: “Anchorman 2,” “American Hustle” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Ten years ago when the “Lord of the Rings” films came out they were epic events, breaking box office records and bringing in dozens of award nominations. The second film in the “Hobbit” franchise seems to be getting hardly any buzz at all this year, however. The fact that you’re even reading this article about how nobody’s talking about it would have been laughable regarding the LOR movies.
Some might blame this on Peter Jackson’s decision to stretch the story into three separate films, rather than one really good one. The LOR movies were incredibly long and the idea of committing nine more hours to another story about dwarves and dragons, might just be asking too much of today’s audience.
Air New Zealand has even branded several Boeing 777-333 jets with Smaug, the fire-breathing dragon of the films. If a 300 foot dragon can’t get people’s attention, what hope does Ian McKellen have? I have no doubt that the movie will still bring in a healthy box office take, but the pot will almost definitely be a lighter load than its predecessor, and the nominations could be on limited to “excellence in CGI.”
If you make it through this film and the third and final (hopefully) installment, I commend you. Let the rest of us know how those little hobbits make out.