Stories from the set

Azog wounded Thorin through the ice in the leg, but later, when Bilbo stands over Thorin, his intact soles appear in the frame.

In the scene where Thranduil orders the retreat to be sounded, Gandalf addresses him to send a company to help Thorin. After Thranduil's reply, Gandalf calls him by name. At that moment, you can see that Gandalf is holding his old staff, which was destroyed in the second part of the film.

When Legolas defeats the orc that falls onto the bridge and, along with the bridge, falls into the gorge, you can notice that there are no corpses there, although there should be at least the corpse of the giant orc and two ordinary orcs.

When Thorin Oakenshield falls, he is shown at the edge of an icy cliff, but when Bilbo runs up to him, he is lying near a staircase.

The film is based on John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's novel "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" (1937).

Despite appearing in all three films of the trilogy, Cate Blanchett spent only eight days on set.

After filming wrapped, several actors kept some props as souvenirs. Martin Freeman kept Bilbo's sword and prosthetic ears, Richard Armitage kept the sword Orcrist, and Lee Pace kept his character's elven sword. Sir Ian McKellen was able to take Gandalf's famous pointed hat from the set.

When the Hobbit film series was in its early stages of development, the plan was for only two films, with the second having the subtitle «There and Back Again». But in July 2012, a decision was made to split the story into three parts and give that subtitle to the final film. In April 2014, Peter Jackson announced that the title of the third film would change after all, and it would be «The Battle of the Five Armies». The main reason for the title change was that the final film focuses on that very battle. Jackson wrote on his Facebook page that the title «There and Back Again» would have suited the second part if it had been the last, but when they decided to make three films, that title became inappropriate, since Bilbo had already arrived «there» in the second part.

When it was announced that the film would have its own booth at San Diego Comic-Con, several fans camped out at the festival entrance a day before the event to get the best spots. In the middle of the night, the fans were woken up by actors Lee Pace and Andy Serkis. They signed autographs, chatted with fans, and took photos with them for several hours. In the end, Pace fell asleep from exhaustion on a mattress next to the fans.

The elk that Thranduil (Lee Pace) rides was played by a horse named Moose ("Moose" literally translates as "elk").