Peter Jackson says that there is a different tone to The Hobbit compared to The Lord of the Rings movies.
Jackson is back in the director's chair to helm the new trilogy to Middle Earth and he hints that there is more of a fairy tale feel this time around.
Speaking to Collider the director said: "The way that I went into it when I got involved as a director was that I'd go into it as exactly the same filmmaker that did Lord of the Rings, like I'm returning to Middle Earth.
"In the sense that it's a real place, I'm there to tell another story, but the characters within the story, as well as the story itself - since you're dealing with 13 dwarves - it gives you a different tone and a different feel in places than Lord of the Rings did.
"Lord of the Rings was incredibly good and evil, black and white. The world was at stake, Sauron. It was pretty basic, and the tension that was involved in the story.
"Whereas this one has slightly more of a fairy tale quality, slaying dragons and going for gold. Just trying to get gold out of the mountain."
When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits the big screen in December it will have been nine years since The Return Of the King was a box office smash.
And this movie is expected to follow suit and could well become one of the biggest movies of 2012 - not to mention that it is already being tipped as a possible Oscar nominee.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is released 14th December.
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