If you’re a fan of Middle-earth, it won’t be long before there’s more to see on the big screen. Peter Jackson’s two Hobbit movies are gathering pace, with Guillermo del Toro confirmed as director of The Hobbit and its sequel.

Based on J.R.R Tolkien’s novel, The Hobbit tells the story of Bilbo Baggins’ adventures with Gandalf and a troop of dwarves, during which he discovers the Ring of Power, while The Hobbit sequel, as previously reported, will focus on the 60-year period between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Guillermo del Toro’s previous movies include the live action comic book inspired fantasy Hellboy, and the critically and commercially successful fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth. Pan’s Labyrinth was the highest grossing Spanish language film in U.S. box office history.

This seems like a great choice for Jackson, Guillermo del Toro has demonstrated with Hellboy that he can direct an effects laden production, while Pan’s Labyrinth shows that he can also create a fantasy work with critical appeal, both of which will likely serve him well on the two new Hobbit movies. What better result than a commercially successfully fantasy movie with critical clout?

Del Toro is presently adding the finishing touches to Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, due out in July, but will move to New Zealand to work with Jackson and his special effects company Weta Workshop for the next four years.

According to Variety, since Del Toro is scheduling four years for the project, the movies are likely to start filming next year and will probably be released in late 2011 and 2012.

It was only four months ago that Jackson and New Line settled a long running lawsuit over profits from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Newline and MGM are jointly financing the two new movies, while Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will executive produce.

Of course there’s no script yet for either movie, but it’s likely that the same writing team that worked on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, will be involved.

It’s going to be fascinating to see whether a Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro team can repeat the success Jackson achieved with Lord of the Rings. Let’s hope so. It would be great to see Sir Ian McKellen return as Gandalf too!

While you wait for the new movies, make sure you check out the surreal and incredibly disturbing footage of Leonard Nimoy, best known as Spock from Star Trek, singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins on YouTube. Not to be missed! 

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The official Hobbit movie blog

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