More Hobbit info from scifi.com

[mr_illuminated]

Del Toro, Jackson Talk Hobbit

Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, who will respectively executive-produce and direct two upcoming films based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, interacted with each other and fans during an international Internet chat dubbed "An Unexpected Party," answering dozens of the 6,000-plus questions sent in and offering

Comments

[illuminated_sin]

Well, it makes sense to have the second film bridge between them like that. The Tolkien purists are probably going to bitch about it, though.

[mr_illuminated]

The thing I'm wondering is "what are they going to do for a story for the second film?" Maybe there's something in the History of Middle Earth that would make for a story, but Tolkien makes it quite clear that Bilbo's life between the end of the The Hobbit and the beginning of LOTR was quite uneventful.

[illuminated_sin]

Yes, but Bilbo was not the only character in the story. Everyone else had lives in the interim.

[mr_illuminated]

Exactly, but they'd have to go dig something up from the History of Middle Earth to find out what happened in the interim that they could make a story out of, because it didn't make it into The Hobbit or LOTR. I'm just kind of skeptical about this concept.