It looks like the already long journey to the Lonely Mountain and back is going to take even longer than originally planned, with the announcement that the final movie in Peter Jackson’s new trilogy, THERE AND BACK AGAIN, has been moved back until December 2014.

Once the decision was made last summer to turn the two-parter into a trilogy, the original plan was for part two, THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, to be released this December, a year after AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, with the final part of the trilogy landing at few months later, in July 2014.

The movie has now been moved back to the traditionally Hobbit friendly time of December (all of the original LORD OF THE RINGS films were December releases). This allows it to avoid what is already stacking up to be a crowded summer, with the likes of X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, JURASSIC PARK 4, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, TRANSFORMERS 4 and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY all scheduled to be released around the same time.

Alternatively, knowing Peter Jackson’s love of long films, it’s equally possible that THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG may actually have a seriously long running time, and moving the third film is to enable us to finish watching it before the last movie comes out.

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