Apart from an announcement back in September that the Tolkien Estate and New Line had settled their differences over profits for the Lord of the Rings movies, clearing the way for the studio to proceed with its films of The Hobbit, interesting news about the Hobbit project has been as scarce as goblin charity.

Pre-production is often like that as so much of what is happening from script development to production design takes place behind closed doors. Which is where it bloody well should remain, as far as I'm concerned! There's only ever one opportunity to be truly surprised by a movie and if we over-expose ourselves to the detail beforehand, we're denying ourselves the opportunity to enjoy the full wonder and magic of the experience. Not only that, more serious leaking of detail can jeopardise the very production of a movie as we've seen with the Forbidden Planet remake.

Although the one tidbit of news we're all hanging out for - who has been cast in the title role - remains elusive (personally I'm hoping for James McAvoy) last week did see a superb interview with Guillermo Del Toro posted on Total Film. What's outstanding about this interview is that Del Toro reveals nothing that will spoil our enjoyment and surprise but leaves us assured that things are moving nicely in the right direction. A couple of months ago I wrote a somewhat disillusioned article about Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies and my scepticism about The Hobbit movies, and while I stand by my judgement of Jackson's movies (they're flawed masterpieces), the more I read and appreciate Del Toro's poetic vision, the more convinced I am that he'll do justice to Tolkien's novel.

The interview covers a wide range of topics from where the filmmakers are at with pre-production, to the joys for Del Toro of commuting between Wellington and LA, to the fascinating professional relationship between the two visionary filmmakers, Peter Jackson and Del Toro (here's hoping this aspect of the films' production is covered in detail in the DVD Extras). Despite the potential for conflict given each director's strong personality and commitment to a unique filmic vision, conflict seems to have been avoided through respect for a separation of duties: "We argue and we win at different stages. But I think Peter has been, so far, the perfect producer... [because he understands that] the producer is not a producer/director. A producer is a producer. If there's an emergency, if everything goes wrong, then the producer can - and should - have a strong opinion. But while everything is going well, on time, on budget and is creatively solid, there's no need for that."

Del Toro's most interesting comments are about the structure of the two films and how Tolkien's material will be handled. There's nothing particularly new here as a lot has been said and speculated over the last year, but Del Toro does put the record straight once and for all about how the two movies will be structured: "We are respecting the structure established by Professor Tolkien because the order of the adventures in The Hobbit is well known to generations and generations of kids. You don't want to be moving stuff like that." What will be added however is "Gandalf's comings and goings because he does disappear in the book quite often. So, as opposed to the book, we see where he goes and what happens to him." This will provide the scope for the filmmakers to be creative with the storytelling but within a framework established by Tolkien in the extensive commentary and clues he provided outside of The Hobbit. Should they choose to, it also provides the filmmakers with the opportunity to "bring back" characters from Jackson's Lord of the Rings who wouldn't otherwise appear in The Hobbit (Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, Christopher Lee's Saruman, Kate Blanchett's Galadriel, for instance).

At the same time, Del Toro is adamant that they're not making another Lord of the Rings movie, "We are not trying to make a quadrilogy, or a pentilogy. We're tying to make two films that flow with those but that stand on their own completely. We want to avoid stuff that is not part of the DNA, that is not part of the lexicon, but we also don't want people to feel We've seen this. Except where that familiarity is comforting, like Hobbiton or Rivendell - then you want to feel like you're coming back home to a movie that you love and cherish."

Del Toro's insightful comments about creature design demonstrate why he was the perfect choice for bringing Tolkien's novel to the big screen. Already demonstrated in Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy, Del Toro understands the grotesque and the complexity - both aesthetic and ethical - of the monster: "The way I phrased it to Weta, I said we would keep the DNA in the same gene pool as the Rings trilogy, but that we would generate a different type of character. For example, in the trilogy most of the creatures are brutish or inarticulate. In The Hobbit, the creatures speak: Smaug has beautiful lines of dialogue; the Great Goblin has beautiful lines of dialogue; many creatures do. So we had to design them with a different approach because you are not just designing things that are scary. I also wanted some of the monsters in The Hobbit to be majestic. I wanted the Wargs to have a certain beauty so that you don't have a massively clear definition: what is beautiful is good and what is ugly is not. Some of the monsters are absolutely gorgeous."

Most promising (and most important) of all: "I think one of the designs I'm the proudest of is Smaug. Obviously he took the longest. It's actually still active: we're finishing his colour palette and a little bit of the texture. But the bulk of the design took about a year, solid. It's because of the unique features of the dragon. Early in production I came up with a very strong idea that would separate Smaug from every other dragon ever made. The problem was implementing that idea. But I think we've nailed it."

So, what was the idea?

"I cannot tell you what it was because it would be a massive spoiler! But I'm 100 per cent happy with Smaug. If there is such as thing as 110 per cent, then I'm there!"

Given Del Toro's visionary creature design in Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy, that's sufficient detail to fuel my excitement.

Shooting is set to kick off early next year, with the first movie due in 2011.

Read the full interview on Total Film here