Guillermo del Toro announced today on the OneRing.net — the official Middle Earth sounding board — that he’s stepped out of the directing assignment on the two film versions of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, though he will continue to collaborate as a writer. I would have bet that Peter Jackson would be the one to step back into the director’s chair because there have been rumblings about this lately. But his manager, Ken Kamins, tells me this is absolutely not a possibility. It seems a sad ending to the dream job that prompted del Toro to suspend his whopping overall deal at Universal — and a slate full of epic-sized projects — to take on The Hobbit after he got the offer instead of Sam Raimi (who wanted it badly). And after the imagination del Toro displayed onscreen in Pan’s Labyrinth, who better to join Jackson and his original Lord of the Rings creative team?
Jackson, who is coming off the disappointing Oscar season entry The Lovely Bones, would seem the perfect person to retake the directing reins after del Toro’s exit. They’ve worked closely on the script, so there would be no interruption in creative continuity. Whether they bring back Raimi (who is working on World of Warcraft but hasn’t committed to his next film) or give the job to a filmmaker like Jackson’s District 9 protege Neill Blomkamp (he’s committed to do his next project for Media Rights Capital) there would be a steep learning curve to bring Middle Earth to life. Jackson translated Tolkien’s creation masterfully in the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy. According to Kamins, it’s not going to happen.
“Peter has and has had obligations and commitments to other films that would make it impossible for him to direct The Hobbit at this time, even if it was offered, which it hasn’t been,” Kamins told me. “I’ve been quietly working on setting up a film for him to direct while Guillermo would have been directing The Hobbit. What you saw in their respective statements must be taken at face value. All of that said, Peter and Fran’s commitment to The Hobbit is total and they will do everything necessary to protect the franchise and the investment made by New Line, Warners and MGM.”
Here is what del Toro announced:
“In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming The Hobbit, I am faced with the hardest decision of my life. After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures. I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I’ve been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed. The blessings have been plenty, but the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for the project. Both as a cowriter and as a director, I wish the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director.”
Said Jackson:
“We feel very sad to see Guillermo leave The Hobbit, but he has kept us fully in the loop and we understand how the protracted development time on these two films, due to reasons beyond anyone’s control, has compromised his commitment to other long term projects. The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years… New Line and Warner Bros will sit down with us this week, to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition, as we secure a new director for The Hobbit. We do not anticipate any delay or disruption to ongoing pre-production work.”
It seems particularly unfortunate that after putting years into writing scripts and making endless trips to New Zealand, del Toro would depart solely because of the MGM situation. That rationale only came up recently, after del Toro completed two scripts with the original Lord of the Rings writing team of Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh. They’d just begun talking about shooting in 3D. If MGM is really the sole reason, that’s too bad because there are signs that things are going to happen soon to decide the ultimate ownership of The Hobbit and other assets. Clearly the fact that the studio — and a talented production and marketing team — has been frozen in suspended animation has been as much an albatross around The Hobbit as it has been for the James Bond series. But everybody is happy with the two Hobbit scripts and all involved still expect production to start late this year or early next year–it will have to, if New Line and MGM are to get the pictures in theaters December, 2012 and December, 2013. This franchise is too valuable to let languish much longer and the debt holders of MGM won’t be happy when they realize that the director has walked because they’ve allowed things to fester so long and handcuffed the executives brought in under Harry Sloan to turn things around.
Though under financial duress, MGM has continued to meet its rights payment obligations on The Hobbit, but hasn’t been able to do any more than that. Warner Bros is the lead studio on the project, and has ultimate say on green light, but perhaps the films are too large an investment to front alone, or that prospect doesn’t benefit the leverage Warner Bros has in a potential buyout of MGM’s assets. Rumblings are that there may well be a new player entering the fray shortly, bringing equity and new experienced management. Summit Entertainment and Spyglass are the names most often mentioned, though we also hear Terry Semel and Peter Chernin, the latter of whom reportedly doesn’t want it.
The development is good news for Universal, whose executives were initially fuming after they made a deal to establish del Toro as a major supplier of tent poles, only to watch him commit five years to The Hobbit. Del Toro can return to such projects as Frankenstein, HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and the Dan Simmons novel Drood. In addition, del Toro is working on the second and third installments of The Strain, a terrific series of vampire novels he’s writing with Chuck Hogan, which absolutely begs for a movie transfer.
Thank god he stepped down. I love Guillermo del Toro and his movies, but this move just simply had to happen. The 2 Hobbit films were taking way tooo long to get greenlit. The man has so many projects many set up at Universal and hes been waiting to get The Hobbit movies greenlit. I’m glad he stepped down so he could do other movies. I cant wait for his version of Frankenstein.
As much as I do like Mary Paren, I fear this means that she must go now. The Hobbit with del Toro was her guaranteed hit. Losing him is not forgiveable.
This is devastating and sad. Del Toro certainly brought a great deal of prestige to this project — if it wasn’t going to be Peter Jackson, there were very few other directors who could have taken the reigns with sincerity and conveyed it’s more than just a studio cash grab.
I love the Lord of the Rings Trilogy — the movies and the books. After another Batman movie and whatever James Cameron does next, nothing would please me more than seeing a Hobbit film with a fully-realized 3D Middle Earth. However, if they can’t find a GREAT director to helm the project, I’d rather they didn’t make it at all. It pains me to say that but I don’t want to see the franchise ruined by a shoddy, hastily thrown together movie.
“Devasting”? You don’t get out much, do you?
Bet a million Spielberg will take over.
I will take that bet. If he gets his hands on the franchise he would ruin those movies.
I think “The Hobbit” is probably a little beneath Spielberg. Regardless, here’s a few people who might do reasonably well with it: Timur Bekmambetov, Alfonso Cuaron, Neill Blomkamp, Gore Verbinski (though he’s a little stock for my tastes), M. Night Shyamalan. I’d also consider Brad Bird.
Tomas Alfredson also might be an interesting choice (though a helluva gamble). The same with Danny Boyle, though I think he could make an interesting choice. Who knows if he’d actually do it. The same for Jon Favreau.
And though they’d never get picked or even be interested, people I’d be interested to see as director: Steven Soderbergh, David Gordon Green, Spike Jonze, Robert Rodriguez, The Wachowski Brothers
If I had to pick anyone out of that list I’d say Alfonso Cuaron.
And how would The Hobbit be “below” Spielberg? He produced the Transformers movies.
He produced the Transformers movies.
Why do I have this terrible sense of foreboding that after a bunch of wrangling, Brett Ratner will get The Hobbit?
*shudder*
:o
Good God, don’t say things like that.
It could be worse. Michael Bay could get it.
And he’ll call it “Hobbitformers”, an origin story with excessive CGI, no discernible plot and unintelligible dialogue, with a crass racial stereotype or two thrown in just for fun.
I’ve always thought he’d call it BAD HOBBITS and cast Will Smith and Nicholas Cage as Orc shooting hobbits. Soon to be followed by the sequel BAD HOBBITS 2 BREAK.
;)
… and Megan Fox will play Gandalf…
“an origin story with excessive CGI, no discernible plot and unintelligible dialogue, with a crass racial stereotype or two thrown in just for fun.”
This is the best, to the point description of a michael bay movie, thanks Tom, love it.
Lets hope Steven Spielberg doesnt get his hands on the Hobbit (dont think its really his style anyway). I don’t know how much say a producer has on the director of a film but I’ve lost respect for Spielberg just working with Bay, if I hadn’t already lost respect for him after he went with Lucas’ idea of puting aliens in Indy 4.
We can only pray that somehow Jackson ends up with the reigns.
Worse still — McG.
Even worse than all of those, Uwe Boll ;)
– Uwe Boll is an easy target, but watch Rampage!
Joe Carnaham is getting sick and tired of people mocking Ratner and Bay….they must be drinking buddies.
Why do III have this terrible sense of foreboding that you will never go away? Don’t you have your OWN website you can post drivel on? You give readers here a headache.
*migraine*
:-(
AGREED!
i have never enjoyed a single del toro film. he’s got great visuals but the emotion is completely missing. i hope either jackson or raimi do it.
If you saw Pan’s Labyrinth, and still say the emotion is missing from his movies, I’m afraid you might actually be dead inside.
AGREED. He’s an idiot that’s talking from the lip. I also bet he hasn’t seen the academy nominated Pan’s
Seconded.
I also agree. Motion carries.
“i have never enjoyed a single del toro film. he’s got great visuals but the emotion is completely missing.”
I am completely with you on this one. When they announced GDT as director a couple of years ago I lost all interest in the movie. Today’s good news has rekindled my interest, though I fear that the spectre of having PJ looming over the project might discourage some from taking the helm. Spielberg may be the only one who could actually do the material justice but it seems highly unlikely that he’d sign on to play second fiddle to Jackson.
Good luck to whoever takes over.
This is absolutely horrible. I can’t believe the studios are letting an absolutely guaranteed cash cow sit and fester this long, enough to lose possibly the best replacement director they could possibly get.
Someone please shoot the lion in the head and clean up this stinking mess. I can’t believe this is how Hollywood operates, by whining and moaning that such a classic studio simply can’t be left by the wayside. Studios go belly up and are disassembled all the time, get over it. I can’t believe any of MGMs lenders with two braincells to rub together would give them this much leeway for so long, and let so much potential revenue in two major franchises lose all of their supposed reputation and credibility before calling for serious action.
Fantastic news. Del Toro was simply the wrong choice for this movie all along…and let’s not forget that when the Rings movies came out, he actually MOCKED them, in press, which made his signing on just unbelievable. Let’s wave his hypocritical ass goodbye.
Finding a new director will be a chore, though. It should be Jackson’s gig, pure and simple.
Stop spreading things you know nothing about. He loved LORDs. please give a us a link to your idiotic assumptions…
waiting…
“I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don’t like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits — I’ve never been into that at all. I don’t like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff.”
– Guillermo del Toro
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/audiofile/2006/10/12/conversations_toro/
Well Wallywood……waiting!!
Once again, the business side of show business rears it’s ugly head. *sigh* I suppose we can all look forward to “Transformers 3”. yay.
Glad to see this happen- because I can’t stand Tolkien, and every single one of Del Toro’s other projects sounds more interesting to me.
Del Toro was absolutely the wrong guy for this movie. Let’s review, Pan’s Labyrinth was the usual self-Western Civilization loathing, noble Communists, evil Fascists [both were evil] and nonsense post-Christian, fake paganism mysticism.
By contrast the source material was written by a “Little Englander” par excellence, a deep and avowed Christian who loved and studied Medieval Europe as a historian and linguist. Its filled with smallness in a way only that a person who deeply loved village England could write. A village England now of course vanished.
Del Toro would be just as bad as Rattner. Both live for the “Cool Moment” … the shot of utter stupidity. For Rattner, its stuff blowing up. For Del Toro, its “how awful evil White guys are!”
You are, as always, brain dead. You have no understanding, Whiskey, of creativity, its process nor how people make art. Del Toro, in understanding his own nation’s history sought to project a fable about the death of innocence in the soul-crushing vise of fascist Spain. Now I understand that you are a moron, but you maybe you do know that to make a film about fascist Spain is very difficult because much of Spain still has strong pro-Franco feelings. He made a metaphor of the fantasy aspects to show the nature of a little girl’s understanding of evil. It was about perception. That some of the oppressed were communists doesn’t mean they deserved their deaths, nor does it glorify them. It simply states that evil uses force and inhuman, totalitarian violence for its ends. It has nothing to do with hating western culture or western people. You are so stupid, you seem to only see people as being pro- West or anti-West. You don’t understand nuance, or subtlety or even the craft of art. You are a thick-headed sad sack whose political attitudes are so barbaric and rudimentary, you cannot conceive of others except that they are ‘evil’. Grow the fuck up, you mouth breathing ass. And as far as comparisons between directors: Del Toro and Ratner (one T, not two) are worlds apart. Without being vituperative (which one could be) the former is an artist, mature and evolving making fantasy and reality blend seamlessly. The latter is a journeyman with no particular signature on his films. I wish to christ you were just honest enough to admit how little you know about what some of us on this board do for a living and would just be the honest amateur you are instead of a pretend know it all.
well look who went to junior college. actually teabag, i agree with almost everything. but you kind of lost me “craft of art”. this has no meaning, dilettante.
You had me @ “Grow the fuck up, you mouth breathing ass”
Tea – you ‘do this for a living’? Well, color me surprised. I didn’t know it was possible to earn a living with foul mouthed put downs, arrogance and absolutely no sense whatsoever of grammar, let alone punctuation.
Frankly, with your kind of skills set, I would think the only ‘living’ you could manage was one that depended heavily on mom having that comfy couch in her basement.
If Christianity is the bedrock of your ability to assess anything critically, then you’re clearly insane.
Do you hear voices? Worship an invisible man who lives in the sky? Believe that everything is either predestined or destined to be judged by that invisible man?
You’re schizophrenic. Seek help.
oh god whiskey, you’re still here?
This post where you say that the Communists were the good guys in Pan’s Labyrinth MIGHT be almost as stupid as your continual insistence that Avatar is yet to turn a profit for anyone invloved.
And by your own logic, Ratner must be the greatest filmmaker of all time, given how quickly his films get sequels, and how quickly he’s snapped up to direct other people’s sequels?
One other note, Del Toro’s Pan’s was about Spaniards. Get your facts straight. They were all spanish non being awful white guys,
Clearly, you’ve never actually *read* Tolkien. His books, yes, are nostalgic tomes about Medieval England. They are also rather clumsily written diatribes against industrialization. While railing on how Del Toro “loathes Western Civilization” by not kissing fascist ass in his films, you are giving Tolkien a pass for his strident anti-capitalist environmentalist streak, no?
I guarantee you that Tolkien would not have been your kind of guy, whiskey, and his writings were not promoting your brand of christianity either. All you do is get on here to bitch about your little conspiracy theories and what and who you don’t like. you seem to have a contempt for hollywood and everyone in it, and yet you read articles and post here on a regular basis. And I agree with Tyler about your Avatar comments– you still won’t admit you were wrong on every prediction you made on that film; you have zero credibility.
You don’t get laid much, do ya Whiskey?
You call yourself a ‘comedy writer’ and yet the only joke you can come up with is a moronic put down that hasn’t a scintilla of humor in it. Either live up to your moniker or get a new one.
I liked whiskey’s comment. Perhaps, the rest of you ‘doth’ protest too much. To me, your comments read awfully film-snobbish.
Guillermo was the only guy with a similar style to Peter that I thought would be able to pull it off. Guess not, this is very disappointing to say the least. Hopefully Jackson finds a way to direct, otherwise these movies are fucked. The last thing they need is to be delayed another 10 years.
Guillermo never mocked the LOTR films. That’s a lie.
And this is a tragedy. The only consolation would be if he gets to do his dream project, At the Mountains of Madness, at Universal (or maybe Frankenstein), and if Peter comes to his senses and returns to the helm (though Raimi or Cuaron or even Spielberg are interesting – if they keep the scripts, designs, etc., and Guillermo stays involved in a producing capacity, as should be his right).
check up a couple posts for the link and the quote…
I can’t imagine how The Hobbit will ever happen at this point. Any marquee director they could attract (especially someone on the level of Spielberg) would insist on throwing out all the scripts and development work and starting fresh, and anyone who’s willing to just show up and shoot the movie that’s been developed (like, say, Chris Columbus or Mike Newell) wouldn’t deliver the breathtaking spectacle that fans are expecting. Maybe it’s just as well; could anything have lived up to the LOTR trilogy?
What about Alfonso Cuaron? He did a fantastic job of hitting the reset button on the Harry Potter franchise. Though I kind of suspect, despite all the denials, that Peter Jackson will somehow be back in the director’s chair.
Alfonso Cuaron?
He made the lowest grossing POTTER film of the pack. He didn’t “reset” anything. In fact, he brought down the series with his drab, lifeless outing.
My God, you could NOT be more wrong about Cuaron’s direction. Of all of the Potter films, the best, the most brilliantly realized of them all was ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’. It was NOT ‘drab’ or ‘lifeless’. To the contrary, it was and is a shining jewel which none of the other films have come close to emulating.
Steven Spielberg.
Even though the style set up by Peter Jackson in the original trilogy does not match Mr. Spielberg’s, hiring him as the new director could be the greatest come back for a potentially dead project in cinema history. And Mr. Spielberg has changed his own style before. Look at Schindler’s List and Munich. Really, who wouldn’t want to see this happen?
Again. Steven Spielberg.
No he is wrong for this!
I certainly would not mind Raimi directing. He and Jackson both started from humble beginnings (slapstick horror) and have had their box-office heydays… why NOT give it to Raimi (assuming he’s still interested).
Oh and please, will someone buy the rights from MGM. How such an incompetent studio has managed to hold onto the rights for so long seems to be the most twisted miracle I could possibly imagine.
That, or just put MGM out of its misery. Goddamn, enough is enough.
One cannot retake something they never took in the first place.
Other than the improper headline, this is neither great news nor horrible news. In fact, it’s barely news. Filmmakers leave projects every day, for a wide variety of reasons. It’s no big deal. The films will still get made. New Line/Warner Brothers/MGM/UA can’t afford for them not to get made.
Forget the Hobbit what we want is a BUGS BUNNY live action/animation film
Scarlett Johansen as Honey Bunny
Samuel Jackson as Bugs
Robin Williams as Elmer Fudd
Conan Obrien as Daffy Duck
The Hobbit is that book about what?
” and this quote”
The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years..
Didn’t they make the Matrix parts two and three in two plus years.
As for the Hobbitt “Tolkien’s Wilderland”
I saw Alice in Wonderland, it must have been better in 3D, but it was a passable UK fairy tale. The Hobbit should have a kill fee so everyone can go make Bugs bunny a better concept for children of all ages.
Don’t get me wrong here, but I can understand how living and breathing Hobbit with Phillipa, Pete, and Fran in the windswept capital of NZ could drive anyone to distraction… Did he wake up suddenly and find that he wasn’t alone in his adaptation? that creative Spectres followed him wherever he went in Miramar? Did he suddenly realize that the LOTR was actually a fairly crappy rendition of the books, and that things were veering wildly towards Green Goo monsters? Did he realize he was supporting the virtual annihilation of the local industry for this Frankenstein, and he could face neither…
why lay this at the feet of MGM, much less Mary? WB is the lead, yes? WB has the ultimate say for ‘green light’, yes? The Hobbit was not meant to be overseen by MGM anyway. seems to me that WB is the studio mucking up the works on this project. What might their motives be for that?
Because it was MGM that came in during the fiasco with New Line forgetting to pay people who were owed, and then CEO Harry Sloan squawked left right and center to anyone who would listen that in mediating a cease-hostilities so the film actually had a chance, he greedily wrangled himself a substantial producing credit on top of just the distribution rights MGM already had. A producing credit with money that MGM clearly does not have. Films don’t get made with no money. And with $3.7 billion in debt, MGM definitely has no money.
Which explains (at least in part) why Sloan got himself fired, but still doesn’t explain why MGM is still even in the studio game in the first place with so much debt. Kill it, divide the rights and libraries among people who can actually do something with them, and good riddance to beating a long dead horse. Or lion.
Warners should just finance it by themselves and be done with it.
I don’t think that’s possible, no matter how much they’d like to. The Hobbit rights are a key slice of MGM’s valuation right now, same with Bond.
I appreciate that people really wanted to see GDT’s Hobbit but the guy has other projects on the burner, including some interesting TV stuff — really hope he focuses on that instead of, say, a giant budget Frankenstein movie, which the world needs about as much as a hole in the head.
As for replacement directors, we all know only Tom Six can do justice to these magical, inspiring books.
Which is impossible because MGM owns 50% of the movie.
I second Tom Six.
Dear Mr Del Toro,
Universal Studios is a very different place since you left to work on The Hobbit. Unless you are interested in directing a film based on a board game or a toy from Mattel you aren’t getting anything greenlit over there.
And after Wolfman bombed they aren’t even that keen on making anymore ‘Universal monster’ movies anymore.
Lots of luck setting up At The Mountains Of Madness at another studio.
Yours Warner Borg
Clearly there were ‘creative differences’ here… probably similar to Spielberg overseeing Tobe Hooper’s work on Poltergeist. Del Toro probably felt like Jackson was second guessing his decisions and decided to exit.
Time to cut your losses studio honchos… Time to pick up the phone and see if Uwe Boll is available!