Two films for The Hobbit? Invented materials to "fill in the gaps"?

[Essex]

Originally Posted by davem

Inventing new material is hardly an issue in light of LotR, where characters, motivations & storylines were altered willy nilly.

I can see your point here but disagree with the term willy nilly. I don't think ANYTHING Jackson did to lotr movies was done willy nilly. It depends what your definition of willy nilly is I suppose.

Regarding copyright. I wonder if they can use the detail from the Tale of the Years and can do stuff around the white council / dol guldur?

What about the stuff from unfinished tales? im thinking in particular of the smoke rings episode with gandalf and saruman that is crying out to be filmed!!!! or is this 'untouchable' from copyright sense too?