Third Hobbit borrows title, gets release date

Los Angeles - The third film in the upcoming The Hobbit movie trilogy will be released worldwide in July 2014, the movie studios behind the venture said on Friday, and the second film now has a new name.

The third film - The Hobbit: There and Back Again - will open in movie theatres on 18 July 2014 - just seven months after the newly titled second film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug arrives on 13 December 2013.

The second film originally carried the There and Back Again title.

The first film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey starring British actor Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, has already been set for a 14 December 2012 opening.

Summer release

Director Peter Jackson, Warner Bros and New Line Cinema, and MGM announced in July that the 3D-film adaptation of the classic novel by JRR Tolkien would be split into three films rather than the two originally envisaged.

Warner Bros executives said they believed the third movie would play well in the summer - the most lucrative period for the movie industry and the launch pad for action-packed blockbusters.

"We wanted to have a shorter gap between the second and third films of The Hobbit trilogy. Opening in July affords us not only the perfect summer tentpole, but fans will have less time to wait for the finale of this epic adventure," Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros said in a statement.

The Hobbit is the prequel to Tolkien's epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings which Jackson made into three Oscar-winning films about 10 years ago.

Watch the first The Hobbit trailer here: