THE HOBBIT will be THREE movies... and in 3-D!?

Is it 1998 again? 'Cuz I'm getting the same feeling now that I did when word first broke all those many moons ago that Peter Jackson would be making a film trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Well, ever since the third and final installment The Return of the King came out more than a half-decade ago, there've been whispers on the wind about Jackson adapting The Hobbit as well, as a prequel film. And for those of us who've been paying attention, it's been a very crazy ride toward no assurance that this would be happening at all (conflicts with the Tolkien estate, Jackson's dispute with New Line, etc.)... which makes me hope all the more that it's gonna go down this way.

GeekTyrant reported last week that The Hobbit will be THREE movies, with Guillermo del Toro directing the first two chapters and Peter Jackson helming the third. In and of itself that's hella kewl... though I have to wonder how there could possibly be enough material from The Hobbit novel to justify three films (and it might be stretching it too much across two, but in Jackson and del Toro will I trust).

And now GeekTyrant is also passing along word that all three movies will be shot in stereoscopic 3-D.

Whoa.

Smaug the Dragon. In 3-D.

That fries my retinas just thinking about how utterly insanely overwhelmingly spectacular that might be.If the report is true, dare we also hope for IMAX?

(Nah, that would be way too much more crazy eye candy than we possibly deserve.)

Throw in Howard Shore returning to score this, and this might be the definitive movie trilogy of the next decade, just as The Lord of the Rings has been for this one. Now all we need is for Peter Jackson to do a six-film movie adaptation of The Silmarillion and the trifecta will be complete! :-)