foofighters7

What...are you planning on reading the script in Dec 16' or setting up to hear about casting?

Hokeyboy

Meh. PJ blew his wad with Fellowship of the Ring and hasn't directed a consistent movie since. The loss of del Toro was devastating.

whoopdido

Perfect. Exactly how it should have been all along. Everyone knows Jackson was the obvious choice to continue on with The Hobbit.

rexinnih

While I would have loved to have seen Del Toro's version, I am really looking forward to PJ closing this out. Very good news.

RocShemp

That's exactly what we'll likely get. If I recall correctly, the reason Jackson wanted this to be two movies is because he wants to merge it with elements of The Silmarillion. I'm really not looking forward to that as The Hobbit could have been a lean 2 hour (if not less) movie. It's doesn't need unnecesarry padding.

Solid Snake

Yeah, Del Toro is a much better filmmaker than PJ. His fantasy would've been more...exotic and intriguing over PJ's vision. BUT I do like that at least that PJ is directing....which is the easy obvious choice after GDT went out.

covenant

crazy talk!

whoopdido

I thought the rumor of adding parts of The Silmarillion was debunked. Not even sure how that would work anyway. I haven't read the Silmarillion but isn't it basically the history of Middle Earth? Some things in the Silmarillion happened thousands of years before the Hobbit. The Hobbit is a very basic, straight forward book while the Silmarillion is SUPER in depth. I see no reason why they would need to be connected in any way.

Jay G.

It is debunked. Nobody has the film rights to The Silmarillion, and Christopher Tolkien is not selling.

There was talk of using parts of the Appendixes from LOTR in the new film, with the second film bridging The Hobbit and LOTR with the events that happened in between them. I'm not sure if that's what they're still doing. I think last I heard was they were just straight-up splitting The Hobbit, which could result in maybe two 2-hour films.

RocShemp

I see. Well if it's a straight adaptation of The Hobbit, making it two movies is retarded. There's not enough story there to warrant two movies.

Blu Man

It originally didn't sound like PJ wanted the job, hopefully he cares as much about this project as he did about Lord of the Rings, and not just throw this together so he can move on. I would disagree about the claim the Del Toro is a better director. A better art directors perhaps, but not a better director. Del Toro's style is pretty much the same in all of his movies, much like Tim Burton people will start to notice that sooner or later and grow tired of his "creative" style. I don't think I would want the purposefully fake looking monsters and almost Gothic style of Del Toro in The Hobbit, PJ's more realistic and less abstract style would just work better in my opinion.

Jay G.

It sounds like they're planning to pad out the films with certain additions, possibly from the LOTR appendixes:
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/06/05...t-bridge-film/

That article mentions The White Council, which took place at the same time as the Hobbit, but was told of in LOTR.

I think PJ was unenthusiastic about being the director, but he certainly cares about the project. He's been producer, and also co-writer, of the films since the beginning of preproduction.

I think he got burned out on directing LOTR. Remember that it was a massive 438-day shoot for that trilogy, with PJ getting an average of 4 hours sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princip...s_film_trilogy

Keep in mind that the average film shoot is around 8 weeks, or 48 days. He spent near 10 times that amount of time directing those films.

And then, after over a year of production, he had to go through another 4 years of post production (they didn't finish the extended cut of ROTK until after the theatrical cut had already won the Oscar).


So, I'm sure he's not relishing the thought of another overly long shoot of a multi-part film series. It's actually a testament to his passion for this project that he'd cancel his other commitments and take on this task he didn't want, rather than watch it die on the vine.

RocShemp

I don't like that idea. Yes, they happened at the same time but The Hobbit is a side story. It's essentially a footnote in the grand scheme of things. Bloating it into an epic is foolish.

JumpCutz

The Hobbit should to be one film and clock in around at around 150 minutes, but that's not going to happen.

All things considered I'm glad PJ is back at the helm. They could have brought in a wildcard with mixed results. At least the material won't be butchered. Still would have liked to see Del Toro's take.

Supermallet

Blu Man

Of course some exceptions apply, especially for a dream sequence of a bat shit crazy teenage girl.

But even that is still less abstract then most of Del Toro's imagery.

Giles

so wait what's the time table then - if Jackson is directing it, then filming will begin - when? and what's the projected film release date - has that changed again? none of this has a barring/effect on the bluray releases of the extended cuts of the Trilogy - right?

Giles

I would have loved to have seen what Del Toro would have done with the look of Smaug - oh well...

Jay G.

I think the idea was that just because a director did abstract effects for a previous film, doesn't mean he'll do the same style for a different film.

They're proceeding with casting, meeting with actors as soon as next week. Production is expected to start this fall, and the films are expected to be out December 2012 and December, 2013.
http://www.deadline.com/2010/06/urge...-hobbit-films/

Of course, some of these dates are just speculation/rumors, and of course are subject to change.

No idea, since there's never been an official timetable for the BD EEs, just rumors.

Solid Snake

It's a fantasy...I think realism being a factor essentially left the building. What I want in a fantasy is to see things that I don't know. Know how to recognize and understand exactly what I'm seeing. As much as I love the LoTR (still holding out for the EE BDs), I never felt surprised by the imagery. Yes, I loved a lot of it. Del Toro gives you what I think is what fantasy should be. A surprise of the imagination.

Also..he's a bigger fan of physical effects over Jackson. Not to say PJ isn't but DT really won't go w/ CGI unless he needs too. Look at The Faun from Pan's Labyrinth and The Pale Man (both played by the very awesome Doug Jones...how sad that we probably won't get to see him doing something in The Hobbit). Even in HBII, the Troll Market..a lot of physical props and costumes in there. A LOT. Going even further into his filmography, it shows he's a much better consistent (in quality) director than PJ.

whoopdido

I stand by my opinion that most of Del Toro's films are trash. However, most of Peter Jackson's films are trash too.

I guess the difference is that Jackson hit a homerun with The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it seems almost impossible for him to screw up The Hobbit as even if he can't direct for shit, he did a wonderful job on those 3 films and the 2 Hobbit films would just be 2 more in the exact same style, same universe, some of the same actors, same production team, so it seems almost impossible that The Hobbit wouldn't turn out at least as good as The Lord of the Rings.

You bring Del Toro in and yeah maybe you get films that are as good as Pan's Labyrinth or maybe you get something closer to his other crap. At least Jackson knows how to film a "Middle Earth" movie as he's already done it 3 times.

Supermallet

I love the idea that even after directing 3 critically lauded and wildly commercially successful films, Peter Jackson "can't direct for shit." And even though he "can't direct for shit," he somehow cannot screw up The Hobbit.

covenant

I'd rather see Alan Lee's, John Howe's or Hildebrandt's version of Smaug rather than Del Toro's. He has an amazing imagination for creature design, but some of it is just too far out there. Especially for Tolkien.

Giles

^ Hildebrandt's illustration of Smaug is iconic.

Solid Snake

That's the version of that I think of. I've only seen one picture of Smaug and this is that picture. I honestly don't think Del Toro would really shake up the visual design that much. He would though make it his own for sure. Remember it is a very different world that The Hobbit is in, some things will be where things weren't in LoTR.