I was excited with the prospect of them stretching this book out into two films, and while I absolutely love Jackson's film interpretations of these Tolkien classics (especially in their extended forms), a trilogy for The Hobbit is just going way overboard and reeks of nothing more than a cash grab to me. I certainly wouldn't mind being proven wrong in that respect, but I just can't comprehend how there'd be enough material to warrant such a material adjustment at this late juncture, unless they wind up trimming the runtimes down on all of them to a "paltry" 2 hours or so. I much prefer the more in-depth and entrenched viewing experience of longer flicks though, as we got with each LOTR movie, and even moreso with each of their EE's.
Harry Potter 7 seems to have set quite the business model precedent that all movie franchises based on book series are now following: Twilight, Hunger Games, and now The Hobbit. Annoying. I can't wait for Percy Jackson, Part 9, Vol.'s 1 & 2.
Any Tolkien purists here upset with the added female character? Amusing rants around the web about that. Seems fairly trivial to me, to be honest, and probably a pretty wise move by the movie studio/writers since Hobbit lacks any of the various heroines found in LOTR. Gotta have at least one lady in the movie, right?