Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Remember that little rumor a while back that the Extended Edition of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies was going to be rated R? Well, it's true.
Warner Bros just announced, via press release, the details of their upcoming Blu-Ray and HD Digital release of the Extended Edition of the third and final Hobbit film. Hidden amongst release date and Special Features info is the confirmation that it will be rated R.
Interesting. I know a lot was cut from the final battle sequence and I imagine there's some pretty brutal moments cut from the theatrical release.
I know some purists might object to the "kid's book" Middle Earth story getting the R-rated treatment, but consider that Tolkien's own appendices that connected Rings to Hobbit were considerably darker than his original children's book and Jackson and company leaned heavily on those while making this new trilogy. A harsher cut of a Hobbit movie is not as far left field as might appear on the surface.
The Blu will hit November 17th and the Digital Version will be available earlier, on October 20th. I don't see any pre-order links from any of the usual suspects yet, but will update this post should one hit today.
The press release promises over 9 hours of appendices docs and other bonus features. I may or may not know of one particular special feature that AICN readers might get a particular kick out of. Let's just say soon you could be seeing why I'm not an on-camera personality...
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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