If you already thought Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy was too long, too bad. The extended edition of each film will be coming to select theaters this October, with a special introduction from Peter Jackson.
An Unexpected Journey will play on Oct. 5, followed by The Desolation of Smaug on Oct. 7 and finally, The Battle of the Five Armies on Oct. 13. Each film will be screened across 500 AMC, Regal and Cinemark locations.
If you are considering going, you might want to bring a diaper. Though the films won't be played back to back, each film has already been criticized for being overly long and drawing out author J.R.R. Tolkien's source material. The extended edition of An Unexpected Journey, already a two-hour-and- 46-minute-long film, adds an additional 13 minutes. The Desolation of Smaug extended addition adds 25 minutes to the film's original two-hour-and-41-minute run time. The shortest of the three, The Battle of the Five Armies, is getting an additional 20 minutes to bring its total run time up to two hours and 44 minutes.
That's not adding the time taken up with Peter Jackson's opening statement in front of each screening. Each extended addition is already available on Blu-ray and DVD, with the exception of The Battle of the Five Armies. This theatrical release will be the first opportunity for fans to catch that version of the film. The Blu-ray and DVD edition will release on Nov. 17.
"We are excited to give fans the first chance to see the extended editions of this trilogy in cinemas," said Fathom Events CEO John Rubey, who is overseeing the screenings. "The incredible cinematography and action in each feature will be even better on the bigscreen and will give Hobbit fans a chance to binge-watch as a community."
It makes perfect sense for Warner Bros. to re-release the film trilogy. The original trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion combined worldwide and proved that Lord of the Rings fans had yet to get enough of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-Earth. There is such a thing as "too much of a good thing," however, and Jackson's three-film adaptation of a single book certainly seemed like it at times. If you want some Hobbit goodness without all the filler, you can always checkout one fan's recut of the trilogy into a single, four-hour-long film.
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