What Is The Third Hobbit Film Going To Be Called?

Now we know there’s going to be a third Hobbit movie the big question is, what’s it going to be called?

The fist one is going to be called An Unexpected Journey, a title that riffs off from the name of the first chapter in the book: “An Unexpected Party”.

The second film – at the moment – is called There And Back Again, which is the book’s subtitle.

We say, “at the moment” because to us There And Back Again sounds more like a last-film-in-a-trilogy title to us. But maybe that would depend on whether films two and three are going to be expanded within the framework of the story of The Hobbit, or whether film three will be more a bridging film between The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings (both theories are doing the rounds, though the former seems far more likely, to be honest).

So there’s the possibility film three could become There And Back Again, and the question we should really be asking is, what should film two be called?

All this is wild speculation, of course, but if we’re right, we’ll be the first to feel Smaug… sorry smug.

But speaking of the dragon Smaug, could he be the key to the naming mystery?

Website Fusible has done some internet detective work, and has discovered that a few new domains have been registered by the company that’s managing the existing URLs for The Hobbit movies.

These are:
desolationofsmaug.com
riddlesindark.com
thedesolationofsmaug.com
thehobbitdesolationofsmaug.com
thehobbitriddlesindark.com
thehobbitthedesolationofsmaug.com
thehobbittheriddlesinthedark.com
theriddlesinthedark.com

Now, there’s no reason to assume any of these are actually in contention, but let’s speculate what it means if they are.

“Riddles In The Dark” is the name of chapter five in the novel, in which Bilbo meets Gollum for the first time. This would seem to suggest a title more suitable for the middle film, unless Pater Jackson is playing around with the narrative quite drastically.

“The Desolation Of Smaug” is an area mentioned in (the book) The Fellowship Of The Ring: the wasted, unpeopled lands around Erebor and Dale, charred and blackened by an attack by Smaug the Dragon. In the book of The Hobbit, Smaug’s attack on Lake Town comes fairly late on, so this title would be more fitting for the third film.

So, what do you think? Will either of these be the title? And of which film?