Final installment of Hobbit trilogy delayed by five months

The final installment of “The Hobbit” film trilogy will be released on 17 December, 2014, five months later than planned, Warner Bros. said on Thursday. [caption id=“attachment_644621” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Poster of the Hobbit[/caption] The Hobbit: There and Back Again had been set to debut in July 2014. It will follow The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which came out in December 2012, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which will reach theaters in December 2013. “We’re excited to complete the trilogy the same way we started it, as a holiday treat for moviegoers everywhere,” said Dan Fellman, president of distribution for Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc . The Hobbit series is a prequel to JRR Tolkien’s epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings, which director Peter Jackson made into three Oscar-winning films about a decade ago. The first Hobbit film was a blockbuster with global sales of $981 million, according to the Box Office Mojo website. The trilogy is financed by Warner Bros. New Line Cinema and MGM. Reuters