INTERVIEW: ?Hobbit? Screenwriter Philippa Boyens Won?t Read ?The Silmarillion? Again Because It Will ?Break My Heart?

Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings screenwriter Philippa Boyens is back for another romp in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth playground with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and she recently sat down with Movieline to talk about the fantasy novel's adaptation to the screen. Philippa Boyens Interview The HobbitBoyens, who is Hobbit director (and co-writer) Peter Jackson's foremost Tolkien expert ? although Stephen Colbert would beg to differ ? refers to the Middle Earth creator using the honorific "Professor"  and her reverence and esteem for the author are just about as infectious (in a good way, naturally) as Gollum's "Precious" ring. By the end of the interview, she had us referring to Tolkien as Professor too, as she discussed the changes and adaptations she and her writing partners made to the text, the sad story of Balin the Dwarf, why fans should be very, very excited for 2043, when the copyright runs out on Tolkien's Middle-Earth compendium, The Silmarillion, and more.

From a technical perspective, if you're not going to have Smaug in this movie you need a secondary antagonist. How did you decide on Azog, and what resonance did he provide for you thematically?

You hit the nail on the head because when we were first looking at this as a piece of storytelling, we wanted to get to the dragon. We did try getting to the dragon in one draft, actually. But you had to lose so much along the way. We also understood that the Necromancer is too ephemeral at this moment ? too much of a shadowy character that's not fully understood. It's a great mystery story, but there's a big problem because there's no actual, physical enemy. And yet the dwarves had a…

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