What began as a mention from Peter Jackson at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, then moved into talks has now become official. Jackson has posted that The Hobbit will now become a trilogy with a third film. The name has not been announced for the film or the exact release date except that it will break from tradition with a summer 2014 release date instead of the expected December 2014 date.

The third film essentially splits The Hobbit: There and Back Again into two films by adding and expanding on stories from the Lord of the Rings' Appendix. It is expected additional films will be shot in summer 2013. The announcement comes early enough that it is probable that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (out 12/14/12) could be further edited to account for the new trilogy plan.

The expectation is the third film will get the title of "The Hobbit: There and Back Again". As for the second title, Fusible has found several web domains owned by Thge Hobbit production company that reveals two potential titles. One is The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" which refers to burned, dead land around Smaug's mountain base. The other potential title, "Riddles in the Dark", is based on a chapter title from The Hobbit book that is about the riddle match between Gollum and Bilbo just before he finds the Ring. If the Riddles title is used, Journey would need a whole lot of new material to push back that meeting to the second film as it occurs early in the novel.

The Riddles title fits the other two Hobbit subtitles better but the Smaug title makes more sense based on natural big action sequence breaks in the novel for movie making purposes that matches what Jackson did for the Lord of the Rings. In that trilogy the action escalated from a battle with group of Uruk-hai (Fellowship) to Battle of Helm's Deep (Two Towers), to huge Siege of Minas Tirith (Return). While The Hobbit mostly made references to other battles, natural breaks include the Dwarves vs Elves (from the book) or White Council vs Necromancer (part of LOTR Appendices), the second could end with fight against Smaug (very brief in novel so assume more added to it) while the third film will definitely end with the Battle of Five Armies (the battle itself was skipped over in The Hobbit book, expanded a little in Appendices).

Below is PJ's note and the press release announcement of The Hobbit Trilogy. Read more »

The Hobbit Trilogy Officially Announced, Possible Titles. There are any The Hobbit Trilogy Officially Announced, Possible Titles in here.