The Lord of the Rings (film series) September 2009, the dispute was settled. The success of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy led to Jackson directing a trilogy of prequels based on Tolkien's children's book "The Hobbit". The films, which were released between 2012 and 2014, used much of the cast and crew of "The Lord of the Rings", including Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Ian Holm (as older Bilbo), Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom who reprised their roles. Although the "Hobbit" films were even more commercially successful than "The Lord of the Rings", they received mixed reviews from critics. Numerous video
The Hobbit (film series) between "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Jackson concurred, stating that "one of the drawbacks of "The Hobbit" is its relatively lightweight compared to "LOTR" ["The Lord of the Rings"] ... There's a lot of sections in which a character like Gandalf disappears for a while – he references going off to meet with the White Council, who are actually characters like Galadriel and Saruman and people that we see in "Lord of the Rings". He mysteriously vanishes for a while and then comes back, but we don't really know what goes on." Jackson was also interested in