The Hobbit is ALIVE!!!

[Shorty]

Another thing I want to point out is that The Return of the King came out in 2003. I know Jackson is a fan of cramming absolutely every last effect into his movies and taking years to do it, but I feel like he should have prepared better with The Hobbit and not waited seven+ years after the Lord of the Rings trilogy to put it out. That seems a bit too long to me - the type from LotR is over.

[charliepanayi]

But Jackson wasn't originally slated to direct The Hobbit, so it's not like he's held off on doing it for years.

[Shorty]

See, I didn't know that. I thought I remembered hearing rumors pretty soon after LotR that he'd be doing The Hobbit. But I suppose they were just rumors.

[Bunny]

Del Toro (Hellboy, The Orphanage) was supposed to direct The Hobbit a short time after Return of the King came out in theaters or on DVD, I can't remember which exactly. He dropped out because it was taking too long to get it through the different companies they were going through for financial help and then Jackson decided to pick it up after that. There were then a slew of troubles regarding filming location (New Zealand's acting guild or whatever wanted better rights or some such). It wasn't really Jackson's fault that it has been seven years, making a movie isn't really about going to a guy and saying "k this is the movie, this is the information, let's film".

Unless that movie is Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

[Vyk]

I had heard the same thing as Shorty. That as a reward for LotR Jackson was allowed to make whatever he wanted. And he wanted to remake a King Kong. And then he was supposed to go back and do The Hobbit

But I never heard from any official sources or cared enough to look into things

[Ouch!]

As I understand it, a large portion of the pre-production was completed under Del Toro--costumes, scenery, etc. It's largely been the trouble in New Zealand and, more recently, MGM's descent into bankruptcy.

[escobert]

Yes, from what I've read what ouch says

[Breine]

I'm glad that Peter Jackson is directing. I was bummed out when I heard Del Toro wasn't doing it back when he dropped out, 'cause if Jackson wasn't gonna do it (which he wasn't at that point) Del Toro seemed like the only other director out there who'd be able to do it.

But, now that Jackson's decided to do it anyway everything should be dandy. Yay!
- I must say, though, I'd still be interested in seeing Del Toro's version of the book. It'd also have been brilliant, no doubt.

[*Devore*]

This is a great book, can't wait for it to come out.

[Del Murder]

I'm looking forward to this one, though I don't know why it needs two movies. Maybe there will be some backstory on Middle Earth in there which should be awesome because I love the history of that place.

[Yeargdribble]

I also don't know how they could really make two movies out of it. "The Hobbit" is far less dense than the trilogy and they managed to fit most of the content from the trilogy into the films. Having read the trilogy once since the films it truly blew my mind how faithful the adaptation was (but no Tom Bombadil ).

I suppose you could try to squeeze in some bits from "The Silmarillion" but I don't think it would mesh with "The Hobbit" very well. "The Silmarillion" alone could be made into half a dozen movies. If anything deserves a lot of films, that's it, but for most it's too hard to grapple and I don't think it would make a very marketable movie (or series of them) other than using the LOTR name power.