The Hobbit

[Elvenguard13]

still no announcement.... maybes they'll make one at Comic Con????

[Thranduil]

Lets hope so EG

[Olorin]

Interesting article about GDT from the LA Times:

Guillermo del Toro opens up on 'The Hobbit': 'It wasn't just MGM'





As Peter Jackson makes progress -- in theory -- on getting "The Hobbit" moving forward again, Guillermo del Toro has a few things to say about the movie he spent two years developing.

The genre auteur says he has no regrets about departing the New Zealand production, but says that anyone who think that MGM's financial mess was the main culprit for his departure is oversimplifying the issue.

"People kept misconstruing that it was MGM. It came from many factors," Del Toro told 24 Frames in an interview at Comic-Con. "It wasn't just MGM. These are very complicated movies, economically and politically. You have to get the blessing from three studios."

Instead, he said, it was the cumulative effect of all of these problems that began to wear him down. "It was really the fact that every six months we thought we were beginning, and every six months we got pushed [back]. And before you could blink, it was a year, and then it was two years."

So was there was a last straw in this bundle of woes? Some insiders have said that Del Toro and Jackson clashed over creative-control issues. The director said that in all their time working on the movie, he and the "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker were nothing but copacetic, though Del Toro didn't entirely rule out that it one day could have become fraught. "We were at the stage where the collaboration was good. If there were going to be any issues, we never got to that stage [in development]," he said.

Del Toro was in San Diego to tout two Disney projects -- a newly announced reboot of "Haunted Mansion," based on the theme-park attraction, and his latest godfather/producer/co-writer project, the Gothic scare-fest "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," which the studio will release in January.

"Dark," which stars Katie Holmes and remakes a little-known 1973 movie, tells of a young girl who moves into a house with her mother and stepfather and begins to realize there are supernatural beings in the basement who want to pull her down with them. It fits with the themes of Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Orphanage" (which the filmmaker also godfathered), in which supernatural events reflect more subtle emotional truths.

"We're combining the dark European fairy tales of creatures who would substitute babies, creatures from a world older than ours, and we also borrowed what I think it a very interesting idea from 'The Birds,' where the monsters are a manifestation of the tensions in the family," Del Toro said. "It's a classic tale with a modern level of intensity."

The genre community has played the game of 'What will Guillermo do (next)?' practically since the moment the auteur left "The Hobbit." While Comic-Con shed light on some of his longer-term projects -- he could eventually direct "Haunted Mansion," he said, but it's not his next movie (Matthew Robbins and he need to write the script first) -- it still left tantalizingly open what he will tackle in the immediate future.

And that future is indeed not far off. In the interview, Del Toro said he would shoot a movie in the first quarter of 2011. The film, he said, was a big movie he'd been writing and developing (so anyone hoping he'd jump on, you know, "Superman: The Man of the Steel" might be disappointed). "It's something that has been with me for a while," he said.

Of course, that still leaves the possibilities pretty open, and gives fans even more to chew on. The new movie could be anything from a new "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde "to a "Van Helsing" reboot to the Roald Dahl adaptation "The Witches" -- but it particularly could be his long-gestating "At the Mountains of Madness," based on the H.P. Lovecraft novella for which he's long professed enthusiasm. We mentioned that title, and Del Toro flashed an impish grin and said, "We'll see."

As for the film he left behind, Del Toro threw his support to the man whom fans have been calling for. "I would love for Peter to direct it." But couldn't that be difficult for Del Toro to watch, knowing it could well have been his own creation? "Parts of it would be, but I'll be really happy to see the designs we did come to life," he said.

Del Toro did still sound a rueful note about his decision to pack his bags and return to Los Angeles without seeing "The Hobbit" through. "It is the hardest professional decision of my life," he said. "I still feel very emotional about it."

If he's really about to start on At the Mountains of Madness, that would be great. If it's Hellboy 3 or Frankenstein, that would be great too. Even if it's that Don't Be Afraid of the Dark remake, that would be cool (I remember seeing the original on TV and thinking it was scary [I was a kid at the time], so I imagine GDT would do a very good version of it).

[swordsicle]

I beginning to think the last day of the Mayan calander dosen't signify the end of the world, but the day the Hobbit gets the green light to start shooting....

[Elvenguard13]

XD! Thats about right!


or..... what if it is the end.... but the end of the hobbit

[Olorin]

From telegraph.co.uk:

Lord of the Rings: sheep take over The Shire on New Zealand film set

Bilbo Baggins may have upped sticks long ago, but The Shire’s hobbit houses are proving popular with a whole new set of residents.
Sheep have moved into the Shire set from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy


The New Zealand farmland that was transformed into Middle Earth for the Lord of the Rings film series has been recolonised by sheep, some of whom have set up home in the deserted hobbit holes.

The rolling green pastures that provided the backdrop for director Peter Jackson’s trilogy were originally going to be converted into hobbit theme park, to attract tourists to the town of Matamata on the country's North Island.

But the plans were shelved, and the land is now home to 12,000 sheep and 250 cattle.

They are allowed to roam around the 17 hobbit holes left behind after the production team departed.

However, the ghost town is not quite the film set fantasy that Lord of the Rings fans might imagine; the hobbit holes are empty as the indoor scenes were filmed elsewhere.

Visitors are able to explore the village through Hobbiton Movie Set and Farm Tours, a company established by the farmers who own the land.

The release of the Lord of the Rings films – the first of which came out in 2001 – led to a spike in tourism to New Zealand after Jackson selected it as location for his adaptation of JRR Tolkien's fantasy novels.

The director, a native of New Zealand, was, was rewarded with a knighthood in his country's New Year Honours list.

How this squares with the recent reports of the rebuilding of Hobbiton, I do not know.

[N2darkness]

When I read this I was thinking the same thing.

[Arwyniel]

I was there in April and while I was on the tour there were not any sheep wandering around where we were, but their droppings were certainly there. I am surprised to see sheep actually in the hobbit holes. I do remember they had orange fencing around the things that they did not want the sheep eating (shrubberies and trees and such.)

[Legion]

Thought I'd just pass the word that I have it on good authority that The Hobbit is moving along much more rapidly than the general public is aware. The future for the film looks bright indeed.

[Rough666]

Pretty strange that they would let the sheep have free range, and access to all the structures. You would think they would want to keep some areas as pristine as possible. The sheep would keep the lawn mowed, that's for sure. Give it a "lived-in" look.

I hope you're right, Legion.