10 Costly Mistakes That Doomed Great Movie Franchises

In the tremendous Lord of the Rings big-screen trilogy, Peter Jackson produced one of the most stunning, important, and joyous adaptations in cinema history.

So, when news broke of the Middle-earth legend agreeing to step in for Guillermo del Toro as the director of The Hobbit story set before the events of those aforementioned epic tales, fans were understandably giddy to see what Jackson could do with Bilbo's trip to the Lonely Mountain.

However, after an admittedly quite strong start which saw Martin Freeman's Bilbo take part in some gripping Riddles in the Dark with Gollum, the Dwarves unleash a terrific song within Bag-end, and a few expectedly wonderful moments from Ian McKellen's returning Gandalf, this Unexpected Journey soon started to feel like a never-ending one.

Had Jackson not decided to try and stretch the small novel out across three movies and instead stuck with the original plan of just the two, perhaps The Hobbit wouldn't have gone down in history as one of the most bloated trilogies of all time.

But by insisting on spreading that single Hobbit novel across too many hours, and also adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's appendices found at the back of Return of the King, Jackson ended up creating a hugely underwhelming - though still massively successful commercially - set of prequel stories that will be forever connected to that prior, much more celebrated trilogy of trips to Middle-earth.