Bankruptcies, defecting directors and stomach ulcers — the road to getting “The Hobbit” in front of cameras has been a long and rocky one. Last week it was reported that the film faced another setback when director Peter Jackson was hospitalized with a perforated stomach ulcer, a rather painful ailment that’s caused when a hole is burned through the stomach lining, allowing acid and food to enter the abdominal cavity (and we thought the five tacos we had last night for dinner was brutal on our insides).
Well, Jackson is on the mend and while a “slight delay” on the production start was expected, its now confirmed that lensing on “The Hobbit” will officially start on March 21st, the first day of spring. The shift in the start date is not only to give time for Jackson to recover, but also to allow for actor schedules and weather in the New Zealand region to get lined up to where it needs to be.
With $500 million being spent and expectations very high, we hope that Jackson’s stomach issues don’t recur — this is enough stress for twenty people. Martin Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Richard Armitage, Aidan Turner, Rob Kazinsky, Graham McTavish, John Callen, Stephen Hunter, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Sylester McCoy, Adam Brown, Mikael Persbrandt, Ryan Gage, Jed Brophy, William Kircher, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen and Saoirse Ronan will all make their way to New Zealand in the coming months with Jackson getting ready to work hard to reach the scheduled December 2012 release date for the first installment of the film. [Yahoo!]