After Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy) announced, only the other day, that The Lord of the Rings prequel movies, The Hobbit, would not be ready for release in 2012 (as was previously thought), he has once again made a rather big announcement regarding the picture’s future; by confirming that he will be stepping down from the director’s chair.
Leaving the films wasn’t an easy choice to make; Del Toro has publicly stated that it was ‘the hardest decision of his life’; but was the right one ‘in light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date’, and the ‘mounting pressures of conflicting schedules that have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for The Hobbit.’
Unlike Megan Fox (Jennifer’s Body) leaving Transformers 3 however, Del Toro’s exit is a much more amiable one, with series producer/Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson stating that he is ‘very sad to see Guillermo leave The Hobbit,’ but ‘understands’ that living in New Zealand for six years in order to make these movies exclusively (when his original commitment was for three years) would have been an enormous, and possibly career damaging, commitment.
Jackson is however grateful to have worked with him; insisting that ‘it has been a complete joy’; and also for the fact that he will continue to be a large part of the project; co-writing the screenplays with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh (The Lord of the Rings), and Phillipa Boyens (The Lord of the Rings), as well as having contributed enormously to the film’s design, creature creation, and battle plans; despite having little choice but to abdicate the director’s chair, after MGM’s sale has led to continued delays and placed not only The Hobbit but many other movies; such as the next James Bond feature, and a planned Robocop reboot; on an indefinite hiatus, whilst all the ownership issues are worked out.
The big question now then, is not dissimilar to the one faced by the producers of Kane & Lynch; who should/will be replacing the film’s director? Will Peter Jackson finally relent, give in to fan pressure, and his own Lord of the Rings nostalgia, and take up the mantle? Will Sam Raimi (Spiderman), who was actually in close competition for the job with Del Toro, get offered the illustrious chair, and back down from his Warcraft movie? Or will the new few weeks/couple of months simply breed numerous rumored candidates, before someone entirely new is officially announced?
No-one knows who’ll get the job just yet, and before the trouble with MGM and the film’s rights gets sorted; and there can be an official start date given; anyone who does step-up, could easily face the same problems as Del Toro; meaning that, for now, The Hobbit has drifted even further into limbo than it was just a few days ago.
