I'll only do it if it works and if it feels like it's going to work on paper. I don't think any of us is going to do it just to do it. There's no outside pressure. We're coming to the idea of the second film with glee and with the desire to utilise something that expands rather than bridges.

If you think of the Lord of the Rings films as a symphony than the Hobbit films - or film if it's decided to be a movie in two parts or whatever we come to - is an overture. It's a grand way of not repeating the colours of the rest of the symphony, but expanding it. I believe it's going to expand that universe.

When Tolkien wrote the book he was not making a prequel ... and if there are gaps in the logic of the use or the powers of the ring between the first film and the trilogy, they will be the same gaps that Tolkien had writing the book. We'll try to deal with it, but I'm not going to betray the spirit of the book in order to fit the cinematic incarnation.