Speaking to fan site TheOneRing.net (via /Film), The Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro confirmed that there have been preliminary discussions of doing the two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s book in 3D. With the massive success of Avatar and with (seemingly) every tentpole film getting the third dimension, there were rumors of this film’s conversion. For a while it was discussed, then denied, and now del Toro says he’s just updating everyone that it’s being considered. The quote is as follows:

I wouldn’t read much on it just yet, but now, after all this time, after AVATAR doing the Box Office it did, we have had enquires from above about The Hobbit being in 3-D.

No impositions or heavy leaning. Just enquires. Just fulfilling my promise to let you all know if discussions ever started.

Cheers

GDT

At the very least, it’s nice to see he’s updating all of the curious fans as to the status of the film, as it’s almost a way of, if not letting fans make the big decision, receiving some of their input and taking it into consideration. I’m admittedly very excited for The Hobbit as I thought the Lord of the Rings trilogy taken as a whole was one of the best film’s of the previous decade.

With that in mind, I want to stay optimistic about the film, because, being very excited, I wouldn’t want to dampen that. I trust the people behind the film to deliver a good 3D experience and not do something like Alice in Wonderland which looks admittedly awful in terms of the way 3D is employed, as that was added in in post-production. Again, they’re smart guys working on this movie, so I have confidence in whatever path they may choose.

Would you want to see The Hobbit in 3D?

The Playlist is reporting that British actor Matthew Goode has auditioned for the role of Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Goode’s young career has been up and down to say the least. In 2009, he was awkwardly cast as Adrian Veidt in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, although he was more than impressive in another tricky role as Colin Firth’s deceased lover in A Single Man. So far this year, he starred alongside Amy Adams in Leap Year, a critical and commercial bomb. Read the full story

Let’s be reasonable. It took 12 years for a film to top Titanic and Avatar has beat it in the first seven weeks at the box office, while showing no signs of slowing down. When Avatar finishes it’s run it could very well be an entire billion dollars ahead of Titanic’s second place $1.8 billion worldwide gross. It is a massive mountain for any film to attempt to climb, but with nearly every big blockbuster recently getting the 3D addition (aka box office steroids), there is a chance. Here are ten films that could rival Avatar’s impressive gross…or at least reach the coveted $1 billion mark, something only five films have ever accomplished. Read the full story

A recent Variety article points out a pretty major factoid about Guillermo Del Toro’s The Hobbit :

[Warners President] Horn won’t predict when the first of the two Hobbit films will be out, but says the most probable scenario would be a release in the fourth quarter of 2012.

We previously reported that Production Weekly released information on a June start of the 14-month production for the film, but with more sources corroborating this information as well it is becoming clear that this proposed release date is a safe bet. December 2012 may seem pretty far off, but with blockbuster films like The Hobbit it’s obviously expected for there to be incredible amounts of time spent respectively on pre-production, shooting and post-production. I’m pretty excited for the film but I would like to see Guillermo Del Toro just get it out so he can get back to the Hellboy franchise as soon as possible.

Is December 2012 too far off for The Hobbit for you to get excited?

After weeks (and months) of different rumors and speculation regarding anything and everything about Guillermo Del Toro’s massive production of The Hobbit, we finally have some solid news. Production Weekly (via their twitter feed) has reported that shooting will begin this June. Part 1 is  still scheduled for a December 2011 release while the second will follow a year later in December 2012. What is most exciting about this news is the fact that Warners Bros has likely given the go ahead, as they previously had not confirmed the greenlight for the project. News was also recently released about the different casting for The Hobbit, but no one has been confirmed yet. Check back for more news as it is released, as I’m sure there will a whole lot of it with a tentpole like this.

What are your thoughts on Del Toro’s Hobbit? Should they rush it for the sake of releasing?

Latino Review has the exclusive tip that Spider-Man’s Tobey Maguire is in talks to play the lead Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming 2-part adaptation of The Hobbit. The question arises with Spider-Man 4 starting up, if Maguire will have time for both projects. LR debunks the rumor that Spider-Man 4 and 5 are shooting back to back so that leaves Raimi’s project to shoot in a couple of months and The Hobbit for summer 2010. The filming of both Hobbit films are rumored to take 370 days so that would make Maguire quite a busy man. First Showing reported a smaller project Maguire may be involved in, but with the strenuous schedule I wonder if it he could do it all. With The Hobbit not even greenlit yet, you can expect more announcements in the coming weeks related to funding, casting and other pre-production. Read the full story

Over the past few weeks there have been  many rumors circulating about different projects. We have recently received a number of confirmations which I  have included all in one post. You can find all of these below. Read the full story

TheOneRing.net has translated a German interview from Moviereporter.net in which The Hobbit executive producer Peter Jackson explains the delay in filming while doing interviews for  The Lovely Bones: Read the full story

There’s been a recent flood of Peter Jackson-related news regarding THREE films he’s involved with,  so here it goes:

First, some early reviews of Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. In a word, mixed.

- Variety’s says that the adaptation “the massive success Jackson has enjoyed in the intervening years with his CGI-heavy “The Lord of the Rings” saga (the source of which receives fleeting homage in a bookstore scene here) and “King Kong” has infected the way he approaches this far more intimate tale.” Bold words to say the least.

- The Guardian is singing a similar song, awarding it 2 out of 5 stars and writing: “It’s not that The Lovely Bones is a bad movie, exactly. It is handsomely made and strongly acted, while its woozy, lullaby ambience recalls Jackson’s work on the brilliant Heavenly Creatures, before he set forth on his epic voyage through The Lord of the Rings.”

- Meanwhile, AICN’s Harry Knowles digs it, as shallow as his lovely love may be: “Lovely also describes the performances throughout this film.” C’mon, Harry – try a little bit.

- THR sits somewhere in the middle: “This was never going to be an easy story to film. Using the same characters and many events, Jackson and his team tell a fundamentally different story. It’s one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it’s also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original.”

The film is set for a wide release December 11th, 2009, and will open, it would appear, to mixed reviews.

In other Peter Jackson news, the director told the BBC that Steven Spielberg had finished principal photography on The Adventure of Tintin but that post-production will take two full years: “it will take two years for the computer animation to be completed, producer Peter Jackson has said.”

Tintin is based on a Belgian comic trip of the same name, drawn by artist Herge, following a young Belgian reporter named Tintin and his fox terrier sidekick Snowy. It is highly anticipated in terms of new cinema technology, set to follow the highly anticipated Avatar, which sports a similar motion-capture animation via  3-D in Imax.

In that same article, Jackson dispelled the recent rumors that Guillermo del Toro’s The Hobbit (which Jackson is producing) will NOT be in 3-D (“Guillermo wants to shoot in 35mm, old-fashioned film,” Jackson said, “which suits me, because he wants to keep it in the same space as the original trilogy”.). This is surprising news, if only because it seems as though EVERY film in pre-production these days will be in 3-D. Hopefully there’s no studio pressure to change Jackson’s report.

What do you think of this news surrounding Peter Jackson and his slew of projects?

Even though producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro are about to announce who they’re pick for the lead role of Bilbo Baggins will be, a new lawsuit emerging may threaten the entire project.  Author J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate is likely to sue for $220 million dollars they weren’t paid in the original film trilogy, specifically they were expected to be payed 7.5% for the profits of the film series, which they claim never happened., according to this story.

According to the same story the case will go to court this October, and the Tolkien family lawyer is confident that New Line will lose the right to the film adaptation.  But at the same time this may just be a lawyer trying to make their side seem more likely to win, when at this point, who really knows how this will turn out.

I find it strange that people haven’t yet figured out that lawsuits between or against studios are never a good thing and usually result in one side (the studio) winning and the other going home either empty-handed or not satisfied with what they’re getting.  We saw the same thing with Watchmen over the past year, and all that ended up being thumb-twiddling, as the movie came out on it’s scheduled release date and no one really got hurt in the process.  If I were to see into the future, I would imagine the lawsuit over The Hobbit would look something like that.

Do you think this lawsuit will have any effect on The Hobbit?