With less than eights months to go until its cinematic release, the final Hobbit film has ended up having a name change….

Originally entitled ‘There and Back Again‘, the concluding film of the epic fantasy series will now be called ‘The Battle of the Five Armies‘.

The bizarre decision was confirmed by director Peter Jackson who explained that the original title felt ‘misplaced’ especially after deciding to split the film adaption of The Hobbit into three editions.

On Facebook, he wrote:

“There and Back Again felt like the right name for the second of a two-film telling of the quest to reclaim Erebor, when Bilbo’s arrival there and departure were both contained within the second film.”

“But with three movies, it suddenly felt misplaced – after all, Bilbo has already arrived ‘there’ in The Desolation of Smaug.

When we did the premiere trip late last year, I had a quiet conversation with the studio about the idea of revisiting the title. We decided to keep an open mind until a cut of the film was ready to look at.

We reached that point last week, and after viewing the movie, we all agreed there is now one title that feels completely appropriate.”

He later added:

“As JRR Tolkien intended, ‘There and Back Again’ encompasses Bilbo’s entire adventure, so don’t be surprised if you see it used on a future box set of all three movies.”

The alteration has led to mixed reviews amongst Hobbit fans with some criticising the new title for sharing similarities with some of the Star Wars prequels.

The cinematic world of Middle-Earth will finally come to an end when The Battle of the Five Armies is released in the UK on December 12th.