8 Movies Where The Worst Version Got Made

6. The Hobbit

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy was a far cry away from the excellence of The Lord of the Rings, mainly as a result of stretching out a concise, one-movie adventure into a bloated three-parter shot almost entirely on blue screen. While the majesty of Jackson's previous foray into Middle-earth occasionally bubbles up to the surface, The Hobbit parts one, two and three are sludgy and overwrought adventures with few redeeming qualities.

This makes the fact that Guillermo del Toro was initially attached to direct The Hobbit even more frustrating. The Pan's Labyrinth and Shape of Water director boarded the project in 2008, and collaborated with Jackson in creating the screenplays for a then two-picture effort. While still in tune with Jackson's vision of Middle-earth, del Toro's Hobbit would have differed in key respects, most notably in the effects department, which would have reportedly seen the director replicate animatronic techniques seen in his version of Hellboy (via BilboHobbit.com).

Del Toro had also considered different casting choices to Jackson, with longtime collaborator Ron Perlman revealing in a 2010 interview with CBR that the part of Beorn had been written with him in mind.

While production deadlines almost certainly proved to be the undoing of The Hobbit movies, del Toro's two-part effort sounds like it would have stood alongside the original Lord of the Rings trilogy as its own distinct creature, rather than as a sluggish, belaboured trilogy.