Guillermo del Toro to Direct The Hobbit

by jordan | April 25, 2008 at 11:04 am | 290 views | 2 comments

Mexican visiouary Guillermo del Toro will be directing New Line Cinema's The Hobbit and its sequel, relocating to New Zealand to work on location and with Peter Jackson's WETA studios.

Personally, I'm thrilled, as del Toro has proven to be a master of fantastical storytelling: making films like Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone about the people, and not about the surreal and fantastical strangeness.

The first film based on J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved book of the same name was confirmed by Jackson and Fran Walsh, executive producers of the films, as well as New Line Cinema's Toby Emmerich and Mary Parent, chairperson of MGM.

"We have long admired Guillermo's work and cannot think of a more inspired filmmaker to take the journey back to Middle-earth," Walsh and Jackson said in a statement. "We are delighted 'The Hobbit' is in such trustworthy hands."

As part of the deal, Del Toro will relocate to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his production teams at Wingnut and WETA. He will direct the films back to back – telling the story of "The Hobbit," and its sequel, which will deal with the 60-year period between "The Hobbit" and "The Fellowship of the Ring," the first book in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Del Toro, who has a long list of fantasy films under his belt including the haunting "Pan's Labyrinth," "Hellboy" and "Blade 2," said contributing to the "Rings" legacy was "an absolute dream come true."

New Line, which produced the "Rings" trilogy, will oversee and manage production of the two films. The project will be co-financed by New Line and MGM. The studio declined to confirm official release dates but word inside the studio is a 2011 release for "The Hobbit" and 2012 for the sequel.

del Toro also directed the quietly superb mecha-insect-vampire flick Chronos. (I'm ignoring Hellboy, by the way: does that expose bias?)

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moonwolf

at 13:06 on April 25th, 2008

good stuff:

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Jarrett Martineau

at 14:39 on April 25th, 2008

I'm pretty excited about the prospect of having the Pan's Labyrinth mastermind take charge of bringing more Tolkien to the big screen, but not everyone agrees. Unsurprisingly, it's Gawker that's raining on the del Toro-Hobbit parade:

While Lord of the Rings could promise epic marketability, The Hobbit screams, "What's my audience?" Already turned into a short feature by Ralph Baksi in 1978, the animated version is a good reminder that the story is a meandering odyssey with a tough ending for the screen, and it's more suited for children than an adult audience.

Lastly, the prospect of a second prequel has to raise a red flag. It sounds like this will be the way that Del Toro and Jackson get more of the trilogy's popular characters back into the milieu, and the gang has already expressed a desire to reprise their roles. That's a smart idea. The Hobbit doesn't have as much in the way of kick-ass heroes or battle scenes. It's a quieter, more imaginative story that needs a different feel than the trilogy, and perhaps a different hand behind it. In that sense, not handling the project himself appeared to be a good move for Jackson, but when it comes to the shaky ground of making two prequels that cover a 60-year period, and there's not a clear story or a clear audience, do we really trust a first-timer to the material?