Peter Jackson & New Line doing 2 Hobbit movies

[Celeval]

Seems they finally got things worked out:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movi....ap/index.html

Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have reached agreement to make J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," a planned prequel to the blockbuster trilogy "The Lord of the Rings."

Two "Hobbit" films are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, similar to how the three "Lord of the Rings" films were made. Production is set to begin in 2009 with a released planned for 2010, with the sequel scheduled for a 2011 release.

Some of the various rumors I'm hearing are that rather than the book being split into two pieces, the first movie will be "The Hobbit", and the second will be a bridge between "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings",. based on some of the implied stuff and other writings - the rise of Dol Guldor, the dwarves recolonizing Moria, etc.

Great news, imho.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Celeval

Seems they finally got things worked out:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movi....ap/index.html


Some of the various rumors I'm hearing are that rather than the book being split into two pieces, the first movie will be "The Hobbit", and the second will be a bridge between "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings",. based on some of the implied stuff and other writings - the rise of Dol Guldor, the dwarves recolonizing Moria, etc.

Great news, imho.

I was happy to see this as well. I watched a good chunk of the triology on Sunday during the TNT marathon. They were all in glorious HD. Excellent films. They saved me from having to suffer through another horrible Lions debacle.

It will be interesting to see if the rumors are true about how they split up the material. I would imagine they would need to get Ian Mckellen back to play Gandalf. I wonder if they will try to stick with Ian Holm for Bilbo or go a different route.

[Lorena]

2010? i can't wait that long

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

2010? i can't wait that long

Does this mean you will turn homicidal?

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I was happy to see this as well. I watched a good chunk of the triology on Sunday during the TNT marathon. They were all in glorious HD. Excellent films. They saved me from having to suffer through another horrible Lions debacle.

It will be interesting to see if the rumors are true about how they split up the material. I would imagine they would need to get Ian Mckellen back to play Gandalf. I wonder if they will try to stick with Ian Holm for Bilbo or go a different route.

I liked the Ian Holm casting for Bilbo, but he's getting up there by now.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

I liked the Ian Holm casting for Bilbo, but he's getting up there by now.

My thoughts exactly.

[flere-imsaho]

YAY for Jackson directing the Hobbit!

OOO for the concept behind the 2nd film. That'll be interesting, if they can pull it off.

[Mustang]

I thought I saw that Ian Holm wanted to do them but, acknowledged that his age probably would probably not allow him back.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Mustang

I thought I saw that Ian Holm wanted to do them but, acknowledged that his age probably would probably not allow him back.

How about they got Tom Cruise to do it. Here is about the same size.

[sachmo71]

yay!

[dawgfan]

Awesome news. They'll have to get McKellen for Gandalf, but I think they'll have to look for someone else to play Bilbo. Bilbo was 50 years younger in the events of The Hobbit, and Holm is 76.

[Schmidty]

Woohoo!

[Calis]

Curious how "kiddish" they'll keep it.

How are fans of the original movies going to take a bumbling goofy as hell Gandalf? And the singing..people thought the hobbits were fruity in the original!

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Calis

Curious how "kiddish" they'll keep it.

How are fans of the original movies going to take a bumbling goofy as hell Gandalf? And the singing..people thought the hobbits were fruity in the original!

I'm sure Jackson and whoever he hires will improve on the source material just like he did with the other three.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Calis

Curious how "kiddish" they'll keep it.

How are fans of the original movies going to take a bumbling goofy as hell Gandalf? And the singing..people thought the hobbits were fruity in the original!

I would suspect Jackson will aim for a relatively similar tone with these adaptations as he used with LotR. The Hobbit was written in a more kid-friendly manner, but the subject matter could easily be presented in a more adult way that fits with the LotR movie trilogy.

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by Calis

Curious how "kiddish" they'll keep it.

How are fans of the original movies going to take a bumbling goofy as hell Gandalf? And the singing..people thought the hobbits were fruity in the original!

I hope they do the singing right, because the songs were very important to the book as far as I'm concerned.

. Also, I can't wait to see the troll scene. I hope they make it as funny as I always thought it was when I was kid reading the book (50,000 times).

[Calis]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

I hope they do the singing right, because the songs were very important to the book as far as I'm concerned.

. Also, I can't wait to see the troll scene. I hope they make it as funny as I always thought it was when I was kid reading the book (50,000 times).

Yeah I'll be curious to see what they do. I'm personally not a huge fan of the LOTR novels, but I absolutely loved The Hobbit as a kid and read it countless times. I'd like to see it kept somewhat in tone with the source material, but I can't imagine that happening.

Will they hire John Rhys Davies to play all of the Dwarves? I wouldn't be surprised!

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by Calis

Will they hire John Rhys Davies to play all of the Dwarves? I wouldn't be surprised!

Or maybe they'll hire that midget from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to play all of the them.

[Celeval]

The two things I think I'm looking forward to the most are the troll scene, and the Battle of the Five Armies.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Celeval

The two things I think I'm looking forward to the most are the troll scene, and the Battle of the Five Armies.

And Smaug. They did such a bang-up job on the balrog, I can't wait to see what they do with Smaug.

[dawgfan]

There's a ton of good stuff to mine in there - encountering the "goblins" in the Misty Mountains, escaping the spiders in Mirkwood, the game of riddles with Gollum, the escape from the dungeon of the wood elves, meeting Beorn, all the scenes with Smaug...it's great source material.

I wonder whether they'll go into detail with Gandalf investigating the "Necromancer" (i.e. Sauron) in Mirkwood and the White Council driving Sauron out, something that was only hinted at in the book.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

...I think they'll have to look for someone else to play Bilbo. Bilbo was 50 years younger in the events of The Hobbit, and Holm is 76.

He may have been 50 years older at the start of Fellowship, but the effect of the Ring had given him an unnatural degree of non-aging.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

He may have been 50 years older at the start of Fellowship, but the effect of the Ring had given him an unnatural degree of non-aging.

Yeah, true. But Holm is still 76 right now, and Bilbo should be a pretty physical character in the Hobbit. I'm just saying I think it would probably be better to lose the Holm connection, go to a younger actor and let the age difference between the Hobbit and LotR be the rationalization for not using Holm again.

If Holm were 15+ years younger, I'd say keep him. But I'm not sure he's physically capable of doing this part justice, considering he'd be the focal point of the movie.

[Cringer]

John Holmes? This is an adult movie?

[Crim]

Who's playing Gollum?

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Yeah, true. But Holm is still 76 right now, and Bilbo should be a pretty physical character in the Hobbit. I'm just saying I think it would probably be better to lose the Holm connection, go to a younger actor and let the age difference between the Hobbit and LotR be the rationalization for not using Holm again.

If Holm were 15+ years younger, I'd say keep him. But I'm not sure he's physically capable of doing this part justice, considering he'd be the focal point of the movie.

Yep, I agree with this, and thought of it after I posted. Holm looked fine as Bilbo in LOTR, but I agree that 76 is very likely to be too old to handle the role.

[Hammer755]

I'm kind of surprised that Jackson used someone as old as Holm to play Bilbo in the LotR, to be honest. He had to see a Hobbit follow-up as likely if not definite. Kind of like how George Lucas planned, err, blindly lucked out, by casting Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.

[rkmsuf]

Peter Jackson doing two Hobbits.

This is a project he can get behind!

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I'm sure Jackson and whoever he hires will improve on the source material just like he did with the other three.

I dunno- for a read, I really like the Hobbit better than the LotR books. It's kindof like a fun, whimsical almost fairy tale whereas the LotR books are a cross between that and a slow lumbering story that got great treatment when turned into movies. In short, I think there were more edits you could make to the LotR story whereas I think you'd want to be more faithful to The Hobbit as it's better source material (for a movie).

SI

[dawgfan]

Should be interesting to see what approach they take with the material. Tolkien used differing styles for The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Silmarillion, but they all contained very similar subject matter.

The Hobbit was told as somewhat of a children's tale in style, but when you think about the content and what happens in the story, it's really not that much different from LotR - it just lacks the extensive historical information that informs much of LotR.

The LotR trilogy is much denser writing written for an adult audience, with the enormous background information Tolkien devised for this mythos adding tremendous detail to all the happenings. The action and events are similar to the Hobbit, though of course the consequences are obviously of a more serious nature - the fate of Middle Earth and the showdown Sauron's forces. If LotR is the war, the Hobbit is a preliminary battle.

The Silmarillion, due to the vast scope of the material, is necessarily written more as a high-level plotline of legends. Again, the material contained within is as heavy, if not heavier and more monumental than that of LotR, but given the vast length of time described, it is presented as more of a sketch than a finely detailed drawing. Were that material given the same detailed treatment as the events described in the LotR trilogy, it would span a huge number of books.

Personally, I'd like to see these two new movies approached in the same manner as LotR. While they wouldn't have the same "the fate of Middle Earth" importance of LotR, it could certainly be given an adult approach and the events happening with "the Necromancer" (aka Sauron) in Mirkwood and the confrontation with the White Council of wizards could be expanded and depicted (something that was only briefly touched on in Tolkien's printed literature) and a foreshadowing of the LotR could be given.

For those that like the more light feel of the Hobbit, there's always the 1977 cartoon adaptation (which is well done IMO) which chooses that approach. If it's going to be filmed, and especially if it's going to be done by Peter Jackson and WETA, it would be a shame IMO to not treat that material in the same way that they treated LotR.

Enough geekiness from me for now, but I'm really excited by this news - something to greatly look forward to in a few years.

[dawgfan]

Update - Looks like Guillermo Del Toro is confirmed as the director for these two movies. Budget for each is reportedly $150M, releases are aimed for 2010 and 2011 (pending resolution of the writer's strike) and supposedly the first film will tell The Hobbit story while the 2nd one will recount the events afterward leading up to The Fellowship of the Ring.

[Jas_lov]

Why isn't Jackson directing? And the only characters that will return are Bilbo, Gandalf, and Gollum, correct?

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Jas_lov

Why isn't Jackson directing? And the only characters that will return are Bilbo, Gandalf, and Gollum, correct?

I believe Jackson is already committed to direct other films, and rather than wait for his schedule to open up he's handing the directing duties off, but he'll still be overseeing the productions.

The only overlapping characters between The Hobbit and the LotR trilogy are Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, Gollum and Elrond. However, the "Elvenking" of Mirkwood in The Hobbit is the father of Legolas, so Legolas could certainly be added to the film version. Also, Gimli is the son of Gloin, one of the 13 dwarves that Bilbo accompanies in The Hobbit - again, they might find a way to write Gimli into the movie version. I would also expect to see Saruman and Galadriel in one or both of the upcoming movies, and possibly Arwen, Celeborn, Aragorn and young versions of Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin. And of course Sauron will be present as well, though if they follow the book and the subsequent back history Tolkien created they'll refer to him at first as "The Necromancer" (since they won't know for sure that he is actually Sauron).

[Calis]

Del Toro is a good choice for it if Jackson isn't doing it. I think he'll do a good job.

In other good news, I just looked Del Toro up on IMDB and see that he's also directing an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness. I had no idea this was being made, that's exciting news.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Calis

Del Toro is a good choice for it if Jackson isn't doing it. I think he'll do a good job.

Yeah, I'm pleased with the choice.

What's most interesting to me is that they're doing two films - I'll be very curious to see what stories they'll tell between The Hobbit and The Fellowship. Seems highly likely that they'll spend some time on Gandalf and the White Council confronting "The Necromancer" (aka Sauron) in Mirkwood forest. And maybe they'll start the movies by recounting the arrival of the Wizards into Middle Earth and their charge by the Valar to help the Children of Iluvatar combat Sauron, and the secret transfer of one of the Elven rings of power from Cirdan to Gandalf.

The cool thing about Tolkien's Middle Earth mythos is the wealth of material to be mined. If these movies do well (and there's no reason to think they won't) I'm sure there will be pressure to delve further into the mythos and film more stories.

[DaddyTorgo]

fuckin stoked for this. Gotta wait till 2010 and 2011?? *pouting*

[Schmidty]

I really hope they can get Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen to reprise their roles. These movies won't feel right otherwise.

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Yeah, I'm pleased with the choice.

What's most interesting to me is that they're doing two films - I'll be very curious to see what stories they'll tell between The Hobbit and The Fellowship. Seems highly likely that they'll spend some time on Gandalf and the White Council confronting "The Necromancer" (aka Sauron) in Mirkwood forest. And maybe they'll start the movies by recounting the arrival of the Wizards into Middle Earth and their charge by the Valar to help the Children of Iluvatar combat Sauron, and the secret transfer of one of the Elven rings of power from Cirdan to Gandalf.

The cool thing about Tolkien's Middle Earth mythos is the wealth of material to be mined. If these movies do well (and there's no reason to think they won't) I'm sure there will be pressure to delve further into the mythos and film more stories.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

I really hope they can get Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen to reprise their roles. These movies won't feel right otherwise.

I can't believe Lee is 86. Hopefully he can come back and reprise as well.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

I really hope they can get Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen to reprise their roles. These movies won't feel right otherwise.

Yep. Hopefully they're both still around for filming. I'm not so worried about McKellen since he'll be only 69/70, but Lee will be 86/87.

Be interesting to see who they pick for Bilbo, since Ian Holm will be 77/78 and is likely too old to pull off that role this time around.

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Yep. Hopefully they're both still around for filming. I'm not so worried about McKellen since he'll be only 69/70, but Lee will be 86/87.

Be interesting to see who they pick for Bilbo, since Ian Holm will be 77/78 and is likely too old to pull off that role this time around.

Yeah, I didn't even consider Holm, since that would just be silly. It would be so cool if Lee makes it (sounds morbid), as he might end up being one of the oldest actors in a big budget film ever.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Calis

In other good news, I just looked Del Toro up on IMDB and see that he's also directing an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness. I had no idea this was being made, that's exciting news.

Um, like, wow.

This is a million times more exciting to me than a Hobbit movie/s.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by stevew

I can't believe Lee is 86. Hopefully he can come back and reprise as well.

lee will be 86? holy fuck

guessing they'll do the same as before and film them together

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

lee will be 86? holy fuck

guessing they'll do the same as before and film them together

Yep, but filming probably won't start before 2009. Have to get a script first, and that can't happen until the writer's strike ends.

[Antmeister]

Christopher Lee has been acting longer than my parents have been alive. I remember him in a lot of Dracula movies as a kid, but damn the guy is in good health at that age.

[saldana]

Originally Posted by Antmeister

Christopher Lee has been acting longer than my parents have been alive. I remember him in a lot of Dracula movies as a kid, but damn the guy is in good health at that age.

no matter what, he will always be "the man with the golden gun"

[Galaril]

Well shitit looks like these could be delayed for a longtime;( Tolkien's Estates is suing New Line since they weren't payed there promised royalties. These fuckers at New Line didn't want to pay anyone! First Jackson and now this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/...olkien_lawsuit

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Well shitit looks like these could be delayed for a longtime;( Tolkien's Estates is suing New Line since they weren't payed there promised royalties. These fuckers at New Line didn't want to pay anyone! First Jackson and now this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/...olkien_lawsuit

It'll get settled like the Jackson and Zaentz issues did - way too much money at stake for them to fuck around. The suit by the estate is their way of prodding New Line into action, since obviously their negotiations on a settlement prior to this weren't progressing to their satisfaction.

[Dodgerchick]

Not anymore. Sucks, I wanted to see The Hobbit through Guillermo del Toro's eyes.

Guillermo del Toro no longer directing The Hobbit

Well here’s some news we didn’t want to hear. Guillermo del Toro, who spoke of his frustration regarding the delay in production a few days ago, has stepped down as the director of The Hobbit films. Both he and Peter Jackson broke the news on TheOneRing.net, with the main reason being the ongoing delays which have prevented a start date being set.

More here - Guillermo del Toro no longer directing The Hobbit

[Groundhog]

Still waiting on that Guillermo adaptation of Mountain's of Madness.

[sterlingice]

I dunno. I'm not a big fan of Guillermo del Toro for something like the Hobbit so it's not really bad news to me. I wish Peter Jackson had been able to do it. The Lord of the Rings movies were pretty much note perfect for the type of movies they were. I think del Toro does a different type of movie and I'm not sure it's for the Hobbit.

SI