Peter Jackson clears up those rumours about The Hobbit movies
- 18 April 2010
- Gerard Wood
We haven’t had a lot to say about the two Hobbit movies for some time as there hasn't really been any news since it was announced that Peter Jackson, Gullermo Del Toro and Company had started work on the scripts. Of course, the lack of news of any substance has rarely got in the way of an attention-seeking headline and that’s never more true than with projects such as The Hobbit in which anticipation runs obsessively high. For months the web has been flooded with wild speculation about everything from casting to production start dates and while it’s generally harmless fun it does muddy the waters of truth and fact.
Well, it seems that we can forget most of what we thought we knew about The Hobbit movies. In an interview with Moviefone on Friday, Peter Jackson rendered the bloated carcass of rumour and speculation down to some fairly minimal facts and all that can be said for certain is that Guillermo Del Toro is directing and Peter Jackson is executive producer.
That's it.
There is some good news however. The scripts for the two movies have just been completed and were submitted to the studio last week, “which is a milestone,” Jackson told Moviefone, “and if anything was holding [the project] up, it was us doing the screenplays, because we'd just been writing as fast as we can, but it took us this long to get them finished. So we take whatever responsibility there is for the speed. And we're now in the process of budgeting the films, and then hopefully we'll get to a budget the studio are happy with, and they'll green light the movies and we'll announce the shooting dates. I'd be pretty optimistic that we'll be shooting before the end of the year. I would imagine October, November, we'd be shooting by.
"I'm not announcing it, though,” he adds, cautious to avoid feeding the rumour mill with speculation that is too easily promoted as fact, and which inevitably leads to headlines of yet another delay in production. On those pesky headlines, Jackson simply observes, [w]ell, it's not really been delayed, because we've never announced the date. I mean it's sort of interesting because the studio [MGM] has never green lit The Hobbit, so therefore The Hobbit has never been officially announced as a "go" project, nor have we ever announced a date. But there's so much interest that people - newspapers and magazines - of their own account, say, ah, it's likely to film in May, it's likely to film in June, it's likely to film in September. People make this stuff up. And then if it's not filming in June, you get a story saying, "The Hobbit’s been delayed." But it's never actually been announced.”
Some rumours however have a greater aura of credibility than others due to their source, and it's revealing that even those fairly authoritative statements by members of the cast of Lord of the Rings about who is and who is not returning are in fact little more than speculation. Jackson is adamant that none of the cast has been approached formally with a deal. In fact, “[w]e haven't signed any actors up yet, because we couldn't do that until [the studio] green light the movie. But I would imagine that if we get a green light within the next month or two, we would be hopefully making some casting announcements by, I guess, the middle of the year. We've done a little bit of auditioning, but we haven't really done any meetings with actors or anything yet. We've just been totally committed to the scripts. Everything's a little bit later than what people assume it is. I think people think we've been sort of doing secret casting.”
In the end, all that can be said for sure is that characters such as Gandalf, Elrond and Gollum appear in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and it's unthinkable (but nonetheless wishful) that anyone other than Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis would take on these roles.
As with Guillermo del Toro’s comments back in November, Jackson’s comments here remind me that the project has always been in the best hands: while my reservations about Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies are on record, there’s no denying that his trilogy is a masterpiece of modern cinema and it’s clear that there’s a commitment from the team to creating a solid script, which is the foundation of any great movie.
Thanks to Moviefone for the interview with Jackson. Apparently a longer version will be published on Monday.
The first full trailer for Peter Jackson's long awaited and ...
The first trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret o...
This could possibly be the most pointless review SFW has eve...
Others have said it already, and I have to agree: just when ...
Who would have thought that a movie like Dungeons & Drag...
Featured articles
08 Jul 2010
Almost any time we write anything about Neil Gaiman, you can be sure that someone will feel the need to post a comment “outing” the man as a Scientologist. While we have a fairly relaxed attitude to comments and will publish almost anything that contributes to an article, you won’t find many comments about Neil Gaiman’s alleged ties to the Church of Scientology published on this site. We simply... Read more
30 Jan 2012
If you own an iPhone 4S you may have impressed your friends (or perhaps not) with the built in, voice-driven personal assistant called Siri. You can ask it to book appointments, call people, search nearby restaurants, make calculations, and a great deal more. Most of the time it gets it right too. Now Siri has an Android rival called Evi, and if first impressions are anything to go by, it's an impressive... Read more
05 Oct 2009
Science fiction authors have long been outcasts from the literary world, in some cases critics using the worst examples of the genre as ammunition against it. Unfortunately though, at times even science fiction authors themselves can turn on their own kind: "Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space,” mocked Margaret Atwood (The Guardian, 28 January 2009), one of her... Read more
07 Jun 2010
Finally having had the opportunity to watch Nicholas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising, I now appreciate why it was received so well at film festivals and yet failed to get a wide theatrical release. It’s hard going. On one hand it’s almost unbearably brutal and on the other it is layered with the sort of mind-bending symbolic meaning that leads the viewer to the brink of utter confusion and leaves... Read more
10 Mar 2012
I have a confession to make. I'm not proud of it, but there's no use trying to hide it any longer, the damage has already been done. I was an Apple fanatic. Hard core. Completely obsessed. I'm not proud of my behaviour. I have no real excuses. All I can say in my defense is that I have always been a gadget fan, so naturally I was ripe for the plucking. My psyche was compromised, wide open to the fruit... Read more
02 Aug 2011
Dan Simmons’ latest novel, Flashback (July 2011), is “[a] provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible,” proving “why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers." So says the publicist anyway. Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers, but sadly Flashback doesn’t prove that. And yes, Flashback is a provocative novel, but it doesn’t... Read more
09 Dec 2007
After 25 years since its original release, a definitive version of Ridley Scott's science fiction masterwork Blade Runner, Blade Runner: The Final Cut, has arrived. So what exactly has changed? And is it worth all the fuss? After attending a recent screening I can report that there are significant differences, mainly improvements, between this new version and Ridley's first Director's Cut released... Read more
16 Oct 2007
Daren Aronofsky’s The Fountain is a movie that divides opinion. During its press screening at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival in September 2006 it was booed; at the public screening the following evening it received a 10 minute standing ovation. To get an idea of just how divided opinion is, take a look at Rotten Tomatoes, a website that rates movies based on published reviews. Of 181... Read more
25 Mar 2012
No movie release in 2011 was more misunderstood and unfairly maligned as a result of misunderstanding than Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch. Odds are you’ll disagree with that statement. An indication of the movie’s reception by “audiences” (non-professional reviewers) and the critics can be found on Rotten Tomatoes, where audience approval is calculated to be 47%, and of the 196 critical reviews... Read more
19 Oct 2011
After watching the pilot to Fox’s ambitious TV time travelling dinosaur fest called Terra Nova, I am praying that when I watch the next episode the entire cast gets eaten by dinosaurs (in fact, that hope is the only reason I’ll be able to sit through another one). The entire cast’s gruesome deaths at the hands of a frenzied T-Rex or a velociraptor having a bad day can’t come soon enough.... Read more
Latest videos
 |  |
![Men In Black 3 Trailer 2 Official 2012 [1080 HD] - Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y2r9AIfYcV8/0.jpg)
![Looper - Official Trailer [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UZyZWFYyxcU/0.jpg)
![Total Recall 2012 Official Trailer [HD]: Colin Farrell Recalls His Dangerous Past: ENTV](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sWMhADqlPYg/0.jpg)
Re: Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell to cameo in Quantum Leap movie
Some remakes are ok becausecof improvements in special...
Re: Chronicles of Riddick 3: Dead Man Stalking - Science Fiction World
What, Riddick became Lord Marshall and now hes...
Re: Rotten Apple: the war on Google's Android - Science Fiction World
That will be the legacy of Steve "Palpatine"...
Re: GodMachine
Strange...but cool. Definitely not EFC related in any...