A lot of people love the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it isn't hard to see why - you've got an epic, sweeping story of an adventure over an imaginative, richly detailed work with it's own unique back story that boils down to a story between good and evil. Peter Jackson's work on the Lord of the Rings films would be hard to criticise - yes, they are maybe to long, the extended editions a little too masturbatory, but considering the source material? It's a miracle that these films weren't longer. He seemed to be a director that is clearly capable of enormous restraint, managing to prioritise the narratively important moments over less important parts that appear in the books.
And then King Kong happened. And happened. And carried on happening until over 3 hours had past, completely unaware that it had long ago lost any of the interest the audience once had in it. King Kong was a bad film, mostly due to this colossal run time, and is a film I can't see many people jumping to defend. So when Peter Jackson announced that he would be directing a version of The Hobbit, a relatively short book, I got worried. When he announced it would be done in 3 films, I got really worried.
