Del Toro, Jackson Discuss Plans for ‘Hobbit’

Published by Jeff Leins on: April 19th, 2009

The world exclusives are rolling in for Empire Magazine as they celebrate their 20th anniversary with an issue guest-edited by Steven Spielberg.  Throwing his name around helped score some big news, and the latest is a discussion about the two Hobbit movies and their plans for the prequels.

The entire writing team from The Lord of the Rings trilogy has returned, including producer Peter Jackson and the addition of Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro.  Originally they had planned on cramming all the happenings of the Hobbit novel into the first movie and saving the second as an opportunity to bridge the 60-year gap between the end of Bilbo’s ring adventures and the start of Frodo’s.  However, it was also reported the studio (New Line/WB) hadn’t secured the rights to The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales and a pending lawsuit with the Tolkien estate probably doesn’t help that happen.  So what will the two movies cover?

Thanks to Empire, we know a bit more about what they’re working towards:

“We’ve decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur,” says Del Toro.  “We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie,” adds Jackson. “The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy.”

Don Guldur is the stronghold of Sauron, so we may possibly see Christopher Lee reprise his role.  Unfortunately, no gap story means we won’t see Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) return to Middle Earth.

The first part of the Hobbit is due in theaters in 2011 and the second a year later, December 2012.