At the end of the Return of the King, there are all kinds of timelines and other backstories that concern the Ring and all those associated with the story. There's all kind of great stuff there that helps build the story, certainly movie worthy.

What's more, Jackson owns it. When they got the rights to both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, ehy got all this other stuff too. But, and this is a big but, they do not have the rights to the Silmarillion. So they are going to wring everyting they can outta what they have. I've heard the Tolkien Estate will never sell the rights to his other works. Tolkien Himself sold the rights to the Hobbit and LOTR a long time ago. Jackson could make the Silmarillion into dozens of movies. It is that dense of a novel.

Make three movies of all this wonderful stuff and I'll pay to watch it. Then I'll pay for the extended edition DVD's.

The Lord of the Rings could have been six movies, as each of the three books contains two sections. I always thought it would have been a better mini-series, myself. They could get five seasons out of the Silmarillion.

Yeah, I'm a Middle Earth geek.