Peter Jackson has defended his decision to make The Hobbit into three movies.
The Oscar winning director is back in the chair this week with The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey - which was originally supposed to be the first of two movies.
But it was announced earlier this year that in fact it would be made into a trilogy of movies and Jackson reveals that it was JRR Tolkein that inspired this decision.
Speaking to MTV News the director said: "A lot of the embellishment, almost all comes from Tolkien because he wrote a lot of notes for an expanded version that he was going to revise after The Lord of the Rings .There were elements looking back at The Hobbit that he wished he'd included.
"So he did have a lot of notes for what he was going to revise but he never got that book done. Those notes were published after his death at the end of Return of the King, so we were able to access a lot of that.
"All of the expanding and embellishment was based on the ideas Tolkien was exploring.
"Things involving Galadriel [Cate Blanchett], she's part of the White Council, which is [comprised of] Elrond [Hugo Weaving], Gandalf [Sir Ian McKellen] and Saruman [Sir Christopher Lee]. That story line we've included was from those notes as well."
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year as Jackson takes us back to Middle Earth.
Martin Freeman takes over the role of Bilbo Baggins in the movie while the likes of Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis will return to the roles of Gandalf and Gollum.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is released 13th December.
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