In a major step forward on “The Hobbit,” Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct the New Line-MGM tentpole and its sequel.
The widely expected announcement -- which had been rumored for several weeks -- came Thursday afternoon jointly from exec producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, New Line president Toby Emmerich, and Mary Parent, newly named chief of MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group.
Del Toro’s moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and Weta production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel dealing with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
This is a bit puzzling to me as I still haven't heard news whether The Tolkien Estate's $150 million dollar lawsuit has been settled yet, but overall I'm very pleased to see The Hobbit back on track. Bring on the Battle of the Five Armies!
Great news! Hopefully, the lawsuit will be settled soon.
ReplyDeleteI suppose with Del Toro as director, we can expect Ron Perlman to play Bard and Doug Jones as the King of the Elves of Mirkwood? Or will Doug be playing the spiders? ;)
What I really want to know is who will be playing the dwarves. Brian Blessed as Thorin, maybe?
- Brian
Hold on a minute. The sequel will deal with the period between The Hobbit and TFOTR?? Where the hell are they getting that from?
ReplyDeleteHi Trollsmyth, you actually kind of lost me with the Del Toro references. Somehow I've managed to avoid seeing Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, but I hope to remedy that soon.
ReplyDeleteHey Falze, good point. Until now I wasn't sure whether the two movie deal would mean a sequel, or whether it meant they were splitting The Hobbit into two parts. I guess we know now.
ReplyDeleteThis does have the potential for trouble. I believe Tolkien sketched out some notes on the events that occured between The Hobbit and LOTR in the appendix of Return of the King, but that's all it is--notes. There's no strong narrative for adaptation, which could lead to a lousy film. I think the odds are against the second film being any good.
As I've said before, there's more than enough material in The Hobbit to make two films. It's not a long book but there's a lot of adventure between its covers.