The Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit, was due to start filming this coming July, but has been delayed, and now has no official start date; a delay which comes as an unfortunate byproduct of the financial troubles that have caused MGM Studios to go up for sale; and although it appeared that it’s future stood upon the edge of a knife, Warner Brothers isn’t all that concerned, and believes it will be able to release The Hobbit (in glorious IMAX) by December 2012.
So far neither Peter Jackson (Director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and executive producer on The Hobbit), Guillermo Del Toro (the officially announced director of The Hobbit), or Sir Ian McKellen (who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies, and is due to reprise the role for The Hobbit), have confirmed that the release date is set in stone, or said that they have the green light to start filming (and those three are generally pretty vocal about such things); but at least the IMAX press release (which is where the majority of this information comes from) has given the fans a glimmer of hope.
However, should their hopes be dashed once again (because a lot can happen in two years), 2012 is still shaping up to be quite an eventful year movie-wise, as not only is The Avengers film, and the next Star Trek picture, due out then, but it is also the year that a new Superman movie is due to be released, and possibly more importantly for the Box Office, and the majority of film goers, Batman 3 (which hasn’t been given an official name as of yet) is also due out that summer (July 20th to be precise).
The date for Batman 3 is fairly unsurprising; as director Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Inception (which stars Shutter Island’s Leonardo DiCaprico as some sort of agent who is able to use technology to enter peoples minds), is due to be released on July 16th (this year), and The Dark Knight was released on July 18th, 2008; but there is still no official word on a plot for the film, or any talk of which of Batman’s many villains will be, getting the Nolan real-world update and, making an appearance (bar the massive number of internet rumours, which currently seem to favour the The Riddler).
So 2012 should be an interesting, and very rewarding, year for film fans; as there are a number of massive movies due to be released; but the only problem is that if the conclusion of the Mayan calendar really plays out like Roland Emmerich’s film 2012 showed, most viewers might get stuck without being able to see the second part of The Hobbit (which is due to be released in December 2013).
