{"id":1625,"date":"2008-04-25T01:35:18","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T00:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2008-04-25T01:35:18","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T00:35:18","slug":"guillermo-del-toro-will-direct-the-hobbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/04\/25\/guillermo-del-toro-will-direct-the-hobbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Guillermo Del Toro will direct The Hobbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is now official – Guillermo Del Toro<\/strong><\/a> will direct The Hobbit<\/strong><\/a> as two films shot back-to-back.<\/p>\n

Dave McNary of Variety reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In a major step forward on \u201cThe Hobbit,\u201d Guillermo del Toro<\/a> has signed on to direct the New Line-MGM tentpole and its sequel.<\/p>\n

The widely expected announcement — which had been rumored for several weeks — came Thursday afternoon jointly from exec producers Peter Jackson<\/a> and Fran Walsh<\/a>, New Line president Toby Emmerich<\/a>, and Mary Parent<\/a>, newly named chief of MGM\u2019s Worldwide Motion Picture Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Del Toro\u2019s moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and Weta production teams.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel dealing with the 60-year period between \u201cThe Hobbit\u201d and \u201cThe Fellowship of the Ring,\u201d the first of the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d trilogy.<\/p>\n

New Line is overseeing development and will manage production. Both pics are being co-produced and co-financed by New Line Cinema<\/a> and MGM, with Warner Bros. distributing domestically and MGM handling international.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There isn’t a script yet but it seems likely that Peter Jackson<\/a>, Walsh<\/a> and Philippa Boyens<\/a> will collaborate with Del Toro.<\/p>\n

With the Mexican director of Cronos<\/a>, Hellboy<\/a> and Pan’s Labyrinth<\/a> on board for the next four years, it seems that the two movies will be shot back-to-back next year and released in late 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n

The WETA production facilities<\/a> – built for The Lord of the Rings trilogy<\/a> – will be used for both films, and New Zealand will once more stand in for Middle-earth.<\/p>\n

For those not familair with the book, the story of The Hobbit<\/a> pre-dates the Rings trilogy and concerns Bilbo Baggins<\/a> taking the Ring of Power from Gollum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

> Full story at Variety<\/a>
\n> Find out more about Guillermo Del Toro at Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is now official – Guillermo Del Toro will direct The Hobbit as two films shot back-to-back. Dave McNary of Variety reports: In a major step forward on \u201cThe Hobbit,\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,97,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}