Everybody must have heard about the news that Guillermo del Toro has left the director seat of the upcoming planned-but-still-not-working-yet The Hobbit. The news was grieved and turned out to be devastating for the fans. With the production of The Hobbit under MGM and Warner Bros is not going anywhere until the financial woes that has plagued MGM (the rights holder) for the past years, is settled; chances are no The Hobbit, yet! But who is suitable to take over what;s left by del Toro?
One big name - Peter Jackson. He fondly adapted the Lord of the Rings trilogy with great success and had established a well-loved franchise. It made a fortune of $ 2.9 billion only on box office worldwide, not including merchandising and home video and TV rights later on. It seems fair enough and logically acceptable for him to take over. But here's what he got to said when was asked by The Dominion Post in New Zealand:
If [directing the films is] what I have to do to protect Warner Bros’ investment, then obviously that’s one angle which I’ll explore…The other studios may not let me out of the contracts.
Peter Jackson, producer of The Hobbit
Sounds like he would take the job if it's all what he need to do. However, there's other issue like his commitments to other projects as well. Therefore, it is unlikely Jackson is going to make the film so soon because of the untimely schedules now. One of his commitment is Tintin, in which Jackson is making it with Steven Spielberg. If everything goes well, Jackson will move forward to direct Tintin 2 in 2011.
To further complicate the matters, or rather to avoid of those, a new director is needed. For that he said:
I just don’t know now until we get a new director. The key thing is that we don’t intend to shut the project down…We don’t intend to let this affect the progress. Everybody, including the studio, wants to see things carry on as per normal. The idea is to make it as smooth a transition as we can.
SOURCES: SlashFilm, The Dominion Post