I worded the subject like that because all the news of this proposed next movie talk about it as a couple of prequel movies, presumably they'll use much from the Hobbit but I don't think it's going to be a straight (not even to the extent you might call the first movies a straight interpretation of the 3 books of the War of the Ring).
And here's another clue/interesting tidbit:
"Preliminary contact has been made with three actors from the Lord of the Rings films to reprise their characters in Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Hobbit films, including Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Andy Serkis (Gollum), Variety reported."
From:
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/news/sfw_news_20080526.htmlNow what on middle earth does Mortensen's Aragorn have to do with the Hobbit? ;)
I know Rangers were watching the shire and all that but obviously there's going to be some major deviations...no surprise I guess, although I liked the movie and while I acknowledge some significant deviations I thought they kept to the spirit and accepted them as just a different way to tell the story and well done.