"The Hobbit 3" release date yawns ever closer, and it's looking more promising than any movie Peter Jackson has made since probably "Return of the King." And this is the last movie in "The Hobbit" trilogy. And the first two made approximately quite a lot of money, and the third is likely to make even more, and so I can gleefully ask the obvious question: Is "The Silmarillion" next? And then I can even more gleefully answer: Not now, not later, not ever!

'The Silmarillion' Movie, Peter Jackson, And You

Here's the thing with the prospects for a possible "The Silmarillion" movie. On paper, it sounds like a great idea. Sure, it's an epic work spanning somewhere north of tens of thousands of years, more characters than even "Game of Thrones," and an epic scope that can only rightly be compared to the Bible or other holy books. Easy peasy. Honestly, most of it is set over the course of a few hundred years, and is about much more down-to-earth subjects like love, war, and battles between elves and a literal deity, essentially the incarnation of Lucifer.

All of "The Silmarillion" is amazing, but much of it is austere and hard to follow. Not all of it, though: Stories within it like the Children of Hurin, Turin Turambar, and Beren and Luthien all would be excellent cinematic subjects. A "Silmarillion" movie trilogy would be entirely workable with the right screenwriters. And, while there are unfortunately neither hobbits nor Gandalfs in "The Silmarillion," there are still some familiar faces, notably Elrond and Galadriel. Heck, they could probably even weasel Legolas in if they really wanted to do it.

Too bad they can't.

The Tolkien Estate & "The Silmarillion"

Here's why: The Tolkien Estate won't let Peter Jackson make "The Silmarillion." There are two reasons for that. The one that could potentially be solved is financial: Warner Bros doesn't hold the rights to "The Silmarillion," just to LOTR and "The Hobbit." The Tolkien Estate isn't terribly likely to sell those rights, considering Warner Bros. stiffed them massively for profits on the film trilogy in the first place. Cinemablend has a good overview of the various lawsuits that have been flying back and forth. Whatever the merits of the claim or Warner Bros.'s questionable accounting, it led to a lot of bad blood. But that can just be solved with more money, if the stakes were high enough. After all, Peter Jackson was finally able to wrangle "The Hobbit" rights after years and years of general unpleasantness on both sides, although that was a somewhat different situation.

The real hurdle facing a Peter Jackson-led "Silmarillion" movie is personal. Christopher Tolkien, his father's son, the estate's executor, and the actual author of "The Silmarillion," really did not like the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Here's the quote from Le Monde, via Cinemablend:

They gutted the book, making an action movie for 15-25 year olds. And it seems that The Hobbit will be of the same ilk. [...]The gap widened between the beauty, the seriousness of the work, and what it has become is beyond me. This level of marketing reduces to nothing the aesthetic and philosophical significance of this work.

Yea, them's fightin' words. That doesn't bode well for Peter Jackson's future prospects with Tolkien's work. And then at Comic-Con 2012, Peter Jackson struck back. According to The Wrap, here's what he had to say about "The Silmarillion:" "I don't think the Tolkien estate liked those films. I don't think 'The Silmarillion' will go anywhere for quite a long time."

Straight from the horse's mouth. There's no way Peter Jackson will direct a movie of "The Silmarillion" while Christopher Tolkien is alive or while the rest of the Tolkien family, and Christopher's own children, respect his wishes. It's hard to say the movie is impossible, but it faces hurdles far, far higher than these other two trilogies had to deal with.

But what about someone else? Could a different creator direct "The Silmarillion" and turn it into a trilogy the Tolkien Estate could stand behind?