Across the Universe: Memories of Middle-earth

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN Movies

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." With that sentence, a British writer and university professor named J.R.R. Tolkien began what would become one of the greatest sagas of fantasy in all of literature. "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again," published in 1937, told the story of a small, humanoid creature named Bilbo Baggins who leaves the safe environs of his home in a land called the Shire and goes on a quest across Middle-earth to help 13 dwarves retrieve their ancestral treasure from a malevolent dragon called Smaug.

Bing: More on 'The Hobbit' | More on J.R.R. Tolkien

Along his journey, Bilbo is gradually exposed to the wider world outside the Shire and the many races and beings that inhabit it. It is that world to which Tolkien returned some 17 years later, when what started as a simple sequel to "The Hobbit" turned into the massive epic known as "The Lord of the Rings." Together, "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" became a landmark in the history of fantastic literature, influencing decades of children's fiction and high fantasy.

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So when journalists refer to the new movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" (the first of three films adapting Tolkien's book along with other material from his Middle-earth writings) as a "prequel" -- well, that's just lazy writing. "The Hobbit" came first, and it was only after it was finished and published that Tolkien began to flesh out its world for the larger canvas of "The Lord of the Rings."

"The Lord of the Rings" became a hugely successful film trilogy between 2001 and 2003, but it took another nine years for "Rings" director Peter Jackson and his vast team to make a big-screen version of "The Hobbit" a reality, and several times it came very close to not happening at all. So why did it take "The Hobbit" so long to get to the screen -- and after "Rings"?

"The Hobbit" has actually been adapted into other media before, going back as far as 1966 and a short animated film that was done purely so that the producer, William L. Snyder, could hold onto the rights to the story, which he had bought at a relatively cheap price. With his ownership of the rights set to expire at the end of June 1966 unless he created a film, and without the resources to develop a feature, Snyder realized that his contract did not say how long the actual movie had to be. So he concocted a 12-minute animated version -- and later sold the rights for $100,000.

Radio and stage versions appeared over the next decade, but the one that people probably remember most until now is the 1977 animated TV movie created by the Rankin/Bass company, best known for specials like "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." The movie stayed fairly faithful to the book, with writer Romeo Muller winning a Peabody Award for his adaptation. As the '70s drew to a close, an animated adaptation of the first half of "The Lord of the Rings," directed by Ralph Bakshi, arrived in movie theaters (the second half was never made), while "The Hobbit" continued to be adapted for the stage and TV (including a bizarre live-action Soviet version in 1985!)

After Jackson's "Rings" film trilogy became a worldwide phenomenon (earning nearly $3 billion worldwide, with the final chapter, "The Return of the King," sweeping the Oscars in 2004), it was only natural that the idea of making "The Hobbit" as a companion piece was addressed. Jackson had originally envisioned making "The Hobbit" back in 1995, to be followed by a two-part version of "The Lord of the Rings." But the rights to "The Hobbit" at that point were split between producer Saul Zaentz and United Artists, making them much more difficult to obtain. With the backing of first Miramax and ultimately New Line Cinema, Jackson was able to make "Rings." It was years later, in 2006, that MGM, which now owned United Artists, approached New Line (a division of Warner Bros.) about making "The Hobbit."

At the same time, however, Jackson was waging a legal battle against New Line over money he thought the studio owed him, complicating his relationship with the company. With MGM wanting Jackson involved in "The Hobbit," development of the film came nearly to a halt. It was finally in December 2007 -- after New Line had suffered through a series of box office flops -- that the two studios announced that Jackson would act as executive producer of a two-part version of "The Hobbit," with Guillermo Del Toro chosen as the director.

The Tolkien estate, also claiming that New Line owed it money, sued in 2008 to block filming of "The Hobbit," but that suit was settled and the project was able to move forward. Del Toro, Jackson, Fran Walsh (Jackson's wife and producing/writing partner) and Philippa Boyens (the Jacksons' writing partner) toiled over the scripts throughout 2008 and 2009 while preproduction also got under way in New Zealand. Then in early 2010, the whole thing came to a crashing halt.

MGM, now going through its own financial difficulties, was unable to officially greenlight "The Hobbit" and provide the necessary money for the next stage of production. The project went into limbo for months, forcing Del Toro to eventually leave the film in May 2010. While speculation raged for the next five months over whether "The Hobbit" would be made at all and who would direct, that all ended in October of that year as the movies began moving forward again -- with Peter Jackson, the man many felt should have had the job all along, directing.

So 75 years after it was first published, "The Hobbit" will come to the screen, starting this week, as not just a movie, but a trilogy, with Jackson and the studios deciding earlier this year that there was enough material to expand "The Hobbit" into three films ("The Desolation of Smaug" arrives next December, with "There and Back Again" opening in the summer of 2014). From that hole in the ground (actually the side of a hill) will come a hobbit, and a legendary saga will finally unfold to hopefully take its place in the annals of fantastic cinema.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" opens in theaters Friday, Dec. 14.