Want to win VIP Tickets for the advance Screening For The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug on Dec 9, 2013 7:30 pm in Fresno? The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is an upcoming 2013 epic fantasy adventure film co-written, produced and directed by Peter Jackson . It is the second installment of a three-part film series based on J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit , beginning with An Unexpected Journey (2012) and set to conclude with There and Back Again (2014). The three films together act as prequels to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series. The storyline continues the events of An Unexpected Journey , in which the hobbit Bilbo Baggins ( Martin Freeman ) travels with the wizard Gandalf ( Ian McKellen ) and a company of thirteen dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield ( Richard Armitage ) into the Kingdom of Erebor, taking them through Mirkwood, Esgaroth, and Dale to combat with the dragon Smaug ( Benedict Cumberbatch ). Jackson wrote the screenplay with his longtim