Kevin's Watch

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Hollywood director Guillermo del Toro said Monday that production delays have forced him to quit the planned film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," a two-part prequel to New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson's blockbuster trilogy "Lord of the Rings."
"In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming The Hobbit, I am faced with the hardest decision of my life," del Toro told a "Lord of the Rings" fan website.
"After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien's Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures," he said, noting the film still hadn't been given the green light by MGM, the struggling Hollywood studio.
Matt Dravitzki, a spokesman for "Hobbit" producer and "Lord Of The Rings" director Jackson, said del Toro would not be speaking to reporters Monday.
The announcement by del Toro reflected Jackson and del Toro's "full sentiments at this time," he said.
Del Toro would continue to co-write the screenplays with Jackson and his wife, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens.
Jackson reached a deal in late 2007 to make two films of "The Hobbit." He is serving as joint executive producer with Walsh.
Last week, del Toro, who directed "Pan's Labyrinth," "Blade II" and the two "Hellboy" movies, told journalists the "Hobbit" films, which have been plagued by delays, still hadn't been given the go ahead.
"There cannot be any start dates until the MGM situation gets resolved," del Toro said. "They do hold a considerable portion of the rights."
Reports emerged late last year that MGM was teetering on bankruptcy and del Toro said those issues had caught the "Hobbit" films in a "tangled negotiation."
"We have designed all the creatures. We've designed the sets and the wardrobe. We have done animatics and planned battles sequences ... We are very, very prepared for when it is finally triggered," he said.
Jackson told www.TheOneRing.net: "We feel very sad to see Guillermo leave The Hobbit, but he has kept us fully in the loop and we understand how the protracted development time on these two films, due to reasons beyond anyone's control, has compromised his commitment to other long term projects.
"The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn't feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years. Guillermo is one of the most remarkable creative spirits I've ever encountered and it has been a complete joy working with him."
He would discuss options for a new director with MGM this week, Jackson told the website.
"We do not anticipate any delay or disruption to ongoing preproduction work," he said.
Last month, Jackson dismissed rumors that the "Hobbit" movies have been delayed by production problems, insisting the project was still in its early stages.
He told Moviefone.com, "Well, it's not really been delayed, because we've never announced the date. I mean it's sort of interesting because the studio has never greenlit The Hobbit, so therefore The Hobbit has never been officially announced as a 'go' project, nor have we ever announced a date."

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100531/ap_en_mo/as_film_new_zealand_hobbit_delay

That was a rude shocker this AM, let me tell you.

The Hobbit certainly seems like it's cursed to never be made. Oh, I'm sure they'll keep struggling at it for a while, and at the mo PJ is promising to keep things alive. But I can see things eventually reaching the point where everything falls apart.

I'm not sure where I stand on GDT. Artistically, I think he would have given the movies an interesting flavor. But he was never a true Tolkien geek, in fact had hated LOTR. Now we are left to wonder if, had there been more love for Middle Earth, would he have tried to hold on, and traded away another project to stay on the Hobbit.

Maybe PJ will do something PJ-ish, like find an unknown promising director and giving him a shot at making this movie.

frik'n studio battles are to blame...

Oh that is bad news! I was rather excited about having GDT doing it. I liked PJ's LotR films plenty (despite finding plenty to moan about!) but thought GDT might bring something interesting to the Hobbit. Yeah, I can see this getting cancelled altogether.

now there is rumblings (even hints from Jackson himself) that HE may direct the Hobbit -- but it's not his goal. The problem is that they are not actively looking for a director now until the studio struggle is over ...

hmmm

MGM deserve to go arse-up after they canned Stargate Atlantis in favor of SG Useless...dumbest move E.V.E.R!

anyway, some other studio might jump in and take over the project! And maybe PJ will be back on board as director! With all the interest in The Hobbit, I don't think it's dead in the water just yet!

This is extremely good news for me. This means that Del Toro can hopefully put in more time towards the film version of H.P Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, which I think could be very good. However, a quick glance at wikipedia reveals he's still got a lot on his plate, even without the Hobbit.

After The Hobbit and its follow-up, Del Toro was scheduled to direct four films for Universal; Frankenstein; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; a remake of Slaughterhouse-Five; and Drood, an adaptation of a Dan Simmons novel published in February 2009.[12] He still has his sights set on filming At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft, a project on which Lovecraft expert S.T. Joshi would act as consultant. Drood is expected to be his first project after the two films set in Middle-earth. These projects would have filled up his schedule until 2017.[13] Part of the Universal deal entails continuing research and development for the creatures in At the Mountains of Madness.[14] In June 2009, Del Toro said he would only direct Frankenstein and just produce Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.[15] Del Toro is also in the early stages of development of Saturn and the End of Days

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_del_Toro

Given the legal house of cards that they built to surmount the rights issues involved in order to even consider making this film, I cannot see it changing hands. The deal is just too complicated; it's already split too many ways. And, for the same reason that they can't greenlight the film, they can't sell or negotiate away their rights to the Hobbit - MGM is too up in the air to make that kind of deal. Just IMO.

Peter's made a nice promise which will help keep the execs from pulling out, but he too has things on his plate. He, too, would have to break other deals to step in. So it's not a promise with teeth.

This one is going to be on indefinite hold for a while. MGM will probably declare bankruptcy and sell off its assets. Hobbit rights will end up *somewhere*. Possibly someone like New Line is waiting for that moment to snarf it up. Someone else will also be there. There'll be a fight over it, and that will take another while to settle out.

If we're lucky, it will happen before McKellan is too old to reprise his role.

This will become the classic Hollywood bungle. If the rights for the Hobbit hadn't been wrangled for all those years .... just two years earlier would have made all the difference.

A friend who is an actor has recently changed agents and his new agent has alerted him to a role/casting for the Hobbit, just this past week. Now it may be (likely to be) agent bullshit, but............

The news is looking grimmer and grimmer for the Hobbit.

TheOneRing.net wrote:He [Ian McKellen] expects an announcement imminently, but states if it doesn’t happen soon – he may not do the film as he has other things planned.

If Ian McKellen isn't going to reprise Gandalf, who would want to see such a Hobbit?

The movie is in a death spiral ... delays cause people to leave, and loss of talent reduces the projected return, the urgency to fund the project is reduced ... leading to more delay.

TheOneRing.net wrote:[McKellan] "I think a decision will be made very soon. And if it is to be made, filming will start quite soon. If it goes the other way, I think it will be put on ice.”

TheOneRing.net wrote:Film-maker Sir Peter Jackson can’t guarantee The Hobbit will ever be made as concerns grow that a lack of jobs is causing movie industry workers to leave Wellington.

Very depressing. I was just watching the theatrical FOTR last night on Blu-ray, amazed at the increase in detail, color, and contrast. With ten years for film technology to mature, I imagine that the Hobbit will look orders of magnitude better. I really hope this gets made. After Avatar, we have obviously passed into a new era of CGI. I'd really like to see some of that applied to Tolkien's work.

And if it doesn't happen, I wish Jackson would go back really take his time with the extended version release of the trilogy on Blu-ray. At the top of his list should be to take out all the digital color "correction" he put into the LOTR. Why is Rivendel so orange? If you look at the trailers, which were done before this color correction, it looks SO MUCH better. I understand the reasoning (giving every location its own color scheme to enhance the mood), but the execution is just horrible in places--the worst example being the Council of Elrond.

And he should redo some of the CGI. Galadriel's "freak-out" is just bad. I wouldn't mind if he went with his original idea to layer CGI on top of every Elf character. In the very beginning, before they started filming, he did some test runs with Keano Reeve's face, and they looked pretty cool. Elves shouldn't look so human. They should look slightly human, but also *more.* Slightly alien, slightly other-worldly. Again, given what we've seen in Avatar, they could take that technology and give us Elves that don't look like human actors. (At the very least, they should get rid of the 5 o'clock shadow on Haldir. Jesus Christ, that looks bad.)

Zarathustra wrote: And he should redo some of the CGI. Galadriel's "freak-out" is just bad.

AMEN! And also if he could do a little sound adjustment and don't lose the words of her speech, which is wonderful, I'd be mighty pleased too.

Zarathustra wrote: I wouldn't mind if he went with his original idea to layer CGI on top of every Elf character. In the very beginning, before they started filming, he did some test runs with Keano Reeve's face, and they looked pretty cool. Elves shouldn't look so human. They should look slightly human, but also *more.* Slightly alien, slightly other-worldly. Again, given what we've seen in Avatar, they could take that technology and give us Elves that don't look like human actors. (At the very least, they should get rid of the 5 o'clock shadow on Haldir. Jesus Christ, that looks bad.)

I hadn't heard about that. Is that on the extras in the extended edition or new with the Blu-ray? I thought I watched all the extras from the EE, but there are really just tons.
And the 5 o'clock shadow never really bugged me consciously until now. But now that you mention it, I realize it did bug me subconsciously and now it has moved to the front of the bus. So now it will bug me every time I see it from here on out, just like every obvious dummy/size double, etc. There are too many things that take me out of the magic these days, partly due to the extras, but mostly because some are just bloody obvious.

I've watched every last scrap of the extras, and listened to all *4* commentaries for all 3 movies. I know, I have a problem. At least I can admit it.

The Keano face treatment wasn't on any of that. It was something I saw online back in 1998. Probably on Theonering.net. I don't think casting was even done at that point.

Haldir always bothered me because his face is kind of fat. Or at least puffy. And because I thought he looked so un-elven, I suppose I've analyzed his face more than some of the other minor characters. But it's not hard to see that they stuck a blond wig on a guy with a "Fred Flinstone" dark beard showing through his very pale skin.

Zarathustra wrote:I've watched every last scrap of the extras, and listened to all *4* commentaries for all 3 movies. I know, I have a problem. At least I can admit it.

Yeah, I have a problem too, as I have done the same thing. AND I bought another version that had both the EE and theatrical versions that came out a few years ago simply to have yet another documentary on the making of. I have to say, it was worth, particuarly for the Dom and Billy show that was on TTT disk. It also wasn't nearly as complimentary to the teams, from people trying to keep others from working TOO much on the film to Peter Jackson getting ansy about losing his nice new 3-D camera.

Zarathustra wrote: The Keano face treatment wasn't on any of that. It was something I saw online back in 1998. Probably on Theonering.net. I don't think casting was even done at that point.

I know I've only watched most of the more technical documentaries once, I didn't remember that one. I think it's about time to run through all the extras again.

Zarathustra wrote: Haldir always bothered me because his face is kind of fat. Or at least puffy. And because I thought he looked so un-elven, I suppose I've analyzed his face more than some of the other minor characters. But it's not hard to see that they stuck a blond wig on a guy with a "Fred Flinstone" dark beard showing through his very pale skin.

Yeah, it was more the dark beard than the puffiness that bugged me, but it was something that really took me out of the moment.

Looks like Sylvester McCoy could be tapped for Bilbo.

I've always said find someone who looks like a young Ian Holm. Sylvester isn't so young, but gosh if he doesn't have a similar appearance.

Sylvester McCoy



Young Ian Holm

Ooo...

The seventh Doctor as Bilbo?
I could live with that.

www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/4192 ... w-resolved

Fingers crossed.

Ummmmmm, I just want to see Bilbo fight the spiders.

Dude, I love this movie! Especially the leadup to the Battle of Five Armies, when Thorin says, "You wouldn't understand. This is WAR!" The last 20 minutes are such an over-the-top anti-war propoganda fling, but the campiness of it makes it totally enjoyable anyway