The Hobbit was a corporate screw-job. New Line said they'd do it with or without him, and he decided he'd rather helm it than watch someone else fuck it up. (Or watch all that money leave New Zealand.) Aaand then the studio pushed him around like any other stooge. No respect whatsoever for giving them a celebrated mountain of cash.

Lindsey Ellis's unsubtle three-part overview covers the biggest problem: some contract promised money per-film, not as a flat percentage. Two okay films got rudely chopped into three mediocre films. Couple that with ass-pull deadlines and yet another hideously overworked CGI studio and you get dwarves surfing on molten gold.