Speaking with Empire, Guillermo Del Toro and Peter Jackson have revealed their new, updated plans for the upcoming adaptation of “The Hobbit,” prequel to the “Lord Of The Rings” series.
Speculation has been rife regarding the substance of the movies ever since the announcement of the two films. Word had been that the second film would be one that veered away from J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material with the aim of bridging the two series, ‘Hobbit’ and ‘LOTR,’ together. Del Toro and Jackson, however, have now confirmed otherwise.
“We’ve decided to have ‘The Hobbit’ span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur,” announced Del Toro. Partner-in-crime Jackson added: “We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make ‘The Hobbit’ in a little more style, if you like, of the [‘Lord Of The Rings’] trilogy.”
Going against Tolkien’s literature was always going to be a daunting uphill battle and, early on, it seemed like Del Toro and Jackson were up to the task:
“We sat down and worked out [the second film]. We got really excited because this second film is not a ‘tag on,’ it’s not ‘filler,’ it’s an integral part of telling the story of those 50 years of history lost in the narrative,” explained Del Toro. “There will be certain things that we will see from the first movie but from a different point of view, but it will feel like a volume in the 5 volumes of the entire story. It will not feel like…’a bridge film.’
Problems, however, seemed to begin creeping into their plans as Del Toro’s optimism on the ‘bridge’ film began to turn sour. One problem that arose seemed to be copyright issues related to the Tolkien estate. As Del Toro had previously explained;
“In the four books that are in the domain of the copyright, there are appendices and ideas and things that can be traced without risk. But I have to be careful not to overstep. We believe there is a way to create this film and make it interesting, but it’s too early.”
With Del Toro speaking of the bridging film so passionately and confidently early on before doing a 180, could it be that the issues regarding copyright had an influence on this final decision to use only source material? By the sounds of it, it certainly wasn’t making anything easier for them. Another problem that might have arisen was trying to write parts for beloved characters like Aragorn and Frodo and then having to depend on actors like Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood to be available to shoot two years from now. Either way, with no “bridge” film as part of the plan, there’s probably little chance we’ll see many of the adored fan-favorite “Lord Of The Rings” characters outside of easy-to-shoot cameos.
Either way, ‘The Hobbit’ will still consist of two feature films presumably still set for release in December of 2011 and 2012.