Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released in 2012.
The fantasy adventure opened in December 2012 as the first film in Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. It adapts the opening portion of J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel The Hobbit, following Bilbo Baggins as he leaves the Shire with the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield.
The film’s production history was unusually complicated. Guillermo del Toro was initially attached to direct, but he left the project in 2010 after delays. Jackson then directed the trilogy, which expanded a single children’s novel into three feature films.
The two sequels were The Desolation of Smaug, released in 2013, and The Battle of the Five Armies, released in 2014. Martin Freeman played Bilbo, while Ian McKellen returned as Gandalf.