You have a point there. I do think the animated films are underrated, and that Hobbit is certainly more faithful. I was glad to see Smaug in action, though, and just more of him in general, and the image of him emerging into the moonlight covered in gold was ecstatically beautiful. But the staging of the action did…

You’re right that The Silmarillion rights haven’t been sold, and are unlikely to be in the near future.

This is what I'd be expecting - further mining of the Appendices. And, given the precedent already set for expanding existing material and supplementing it with new characters and events, it would seem that many films could be easily generated just from this. I wonder why we aren't hearing more speculation about…

Film directors don't create in the same way as novelists. If you don't think Jackson created anything, compare his films with the animated versions and see if you can find any difference.

It's not true that they'd need The Silmarillion. What about the extensive LOTR appendices they've been using so liberally to supplement these stories? Even if Jackson is tired, what's to stop the producers from using all this additional this material to generate more films?