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In news that may not be too shocking for those who gobbled up The Hobbit, director Peter Jackson has admitted he began filming the trilogy without proper preparation, often shooting without storyboards and completed scripts and “making it up as I went along”.

In the perhaps too candid behind-the-scenes featurette from the Battle of Five Armies DVD, the Oscar-winning auteur explains taking over directing duties in 2010 following the departure of director Guillermo Del Toro, and being left with no time to prepare before shooting began, reports The Guardian.

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You’re going on to a set and you’re winging it, you’ve got these massively complicated scenes, no storyboards and you’re making it up

“Because Guillermo Del Toro had to leave and I jumped in and took over, we didn’t wind the clock back a year and a half and give me a year and a half prep to design the movie, which was different to what he was doing,” said Jackson. “It was impossible, and as a result of it being impossible, I just started shooting the movie with most of it not prepped at all.

“You’re going on to a set and you’re winging it, you’ve got these massively complicated scenes, no storyboards and you’re making it up there and then on the spot,” he continued. “I spent most of The Hobbit feeling like I was not on top of it…even from a script point of view Fran (Walsh), Philippa (Boyens) and I hadn’t got the entire scripts written to our satisfaction so that was a very high pressure situation.”

This might explain why The Battle of Five Armies was delayed by five months in 2013. Jackson admitted he “winged it” right up until the film’s climactic battle but eventually was forced to pause production while he worked out how to shoot it.

Because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing now, because I haven’t got storyboards and prep, why don’t we just finish earlier

“We had allowed two months of shooting for that in 2012, and at some point when we were approaching that I went to our producers and the studio and said: ‘Because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing now, because I haven’t got storyboards and prep, why don’t we just finish earlier?’” he said.

The trilogy did bank nearly $3 billion worldwide – after becoming the most expensive film production ever made at an estimated $710 million – but it wasn’t as much of a critical hit, at least not like the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Many took aim at the fact that the novel was split into three films spanning eight hours, while The Battle of the Five Armies became the saga’s worst-reviewed film with a lowly 60% fresh rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.