Peter Jackson to Direct "The Hobbit"?

For all of you out there who don’t know me, I would like it known that I am a massive Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien fan, and even more so a Peter Jackson fan. So you can imagine my elation at finding out the news that Peter Jackson appears very close to signing on officially to direct both of the upcoming ‘Hobbit’ films for MGM.



By now anyone who is truly interested in these films knows that Jackson was always slated to produce the film and his production company Wingnut Films was going to have complete control as it did for the LotR trilogy. The big difference was that Jackson had committed to other film projects and was going to be unavailable to direct the films based on the time frame that MGM had originally set forth for the start of production. That forced Jackson to look for another director and his selection was ‘Hellboy’ and ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ director Guillermo Del Toro to helm the project. Now I think Del Toro is a good director with vision and passion but to be completely honest, I am not a big Hellboy fan and I am in a minority of serious film fans who hated ‘Pans Labyrinth’. So for me this is not just a good break but incredibly great news if indeed Jackson finally puts his John Hancock on a contract.

The major problem of course is the budgeting and start date for the film. For those of you who don’t know, MGM is in serious financial trouble as they are over 4 billion dollars in debt. Therefore they have put a hold on all productions even those that are guaranteed cash cows like ‘The Hobbit’. Unfortunately the owners of this franchise is not Newline Cinemas who flipped the bill for Jackson three other epic LotR films which grossed very close to 3 billion in sales worldwide not including DVD sales. So Jackson and the whole world will have to wait until MGM’s financial situation is solved either through a sale or through some other kind of arrangement. I just hope that when it’s all said and done that Jackson will be in charge and that his vision and care are all over these greatly anticipated films. After all, who should be directing these films other than the man who delivered the previous three Tolkien based masterpieces. I for one am relieved and overjoyed and I can hardly wait. Now lets get a move on it because the anticipation is killing me.