Third Hobbit film retitled The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies

The third and final Hobbit film has been given a shiny new title courtesy of director Peter Jackson, who has announced that the film will now be called The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies .

That makes perfect sense considering the plot of the third film, which should essentially be one giant battle sequence as the hobbits, goblins, elves and men all go up against one another for one epic scrap.

Frankly, it's far superior to the working title of There And Back Again – and apparently Jackson decided on the change after watching a cut of the film.

"When we did the premiere trip late last year, I had a quiet conversation with the studio about the idea of revisiting the title," he revealed on Facebook.

"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."

So that's two great bits of news – a new title, and the film's already coming together. Expect the CGI wizards to start their portion of the heavy lifting round about... now...

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies opens in the UK on 12 December 2014.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.