a third The Hobbit movie?

On a slightly lighter note from all the politics/heavy personal stuff...

TOR.n is reporting a L.A. Times story saying the studios are considering making a third Hobbit movie. Specifically:

The Burbank film studio originally planned to release two “Hobbit” movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary prelude to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and principal photography on those two pictures finished in New Zealand this month. The first is set to come out in December, followed by the second in December 2013. The two films combined cost about $500 million.

But Jackson has concluded that there is enough material from the book, as well as the extensive appendixes to “The Lord of the Rings,” to make a third film, according to three people who were not authorized to speak publicly. New Line Cinema, the Warner Bros. unit overseeing production of the movies, is eager to see it happen, and talks are underway with actors and others who would need to sign off on the plan.

Aside from this being very cool news (icanhas?), I've been wondering how thy were going to break up the movies? I'm assuming the Hobbit itself provides the plot for the first movie, and that after that there's some kind of a LOTR preview. This is a guess completely out of nowhere, but I'd assume it would be about events in Gondor and Rohan, culminating with Gandalf discovering the news about the Ring and the first battle at Osgiliath. But I don't know.

So in light of that, I was wondering. I'm assuming the first move will be The Hobbit itself. If you were to make a movie of the other material between Bilbo's and Frodo's quests, what events and characters would you center it around? What canonical events would you use to create a self-contained story, and how would you tell that tale?

(No spoilers for the actual movies, please.)

(Originally posted at LJ.)