The Hobbit film trilogy

A film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is scheduled for release in 2010 by MGM and New Line cinema. Guillermo del Toro has been signed to helm the film and a sequel. Peter Jackson has been confirmed as an Executive Producer whilst certain cast (Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis) and crew (WETA workshop, John Howe, Alan Lee, Mark Ordesky and Howard Shore) are reportedly likely to reprise their roles from the lord of the rings movie trilogy. A script has yet to appear and a second film, filmed simultaneously is currently planned for a 2011 release.

Film
Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh expressed interest in 1995 in adapting J. R. R. Tolkien's novels. Jackson's pitch was to film The Hobbit, and shoot The Lord of the Rings back-to-back afterward. They met with Saul Zaentz, who bought the film rights to The Lord of the Rings from MGM in the 1970s. However, frustration arose when Jackson's producer, Harvey Weinstein learned Zaentz had production rights to The Hobbit, but distribution rights still belonged to United Artists. U.A. was on the market, so Weinstein's attempts to buy those rights were unsuccessful. Weinstein asked Jackson to press on with adapting The Lord of the Rings.

Eight years later, New Line Cinema had produced The Lord of the Rings film trilogy after Miramax Films left when they wanted to condense the two planned Rings films into one. However, New Line has a limited time option on The Hobbit. MGM holds the distribution rights to The Hobbit, and expressed interest in teaming up with New Line and Jackson to make the film in September 2006. MGM also expressed interest in another prequel film, set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

In March 2005, Jackson launched a lawsuit against New Line, claiming he had lost revenue from merchandising, video and computer games releases associated with The Fellowship of The Ring. New Line co-founder Robert Shaye was annoyed with the lawsuit, and said in January 2007 that Jackson would never again direct a film for New Line, accusing Jackson of being greedy. MGM was disappointed with New Line's decision.Sam Raimi expressed interest in taking over the project. In August 2007, after a string of flops, Shaye was trying to repair his working relationship with Jackson. Shaye said, "I really respect and admire Peter and would love for him to be creatively involved in some way in The Hobbit. In September, New Line was fined $125,000 for failing to provide requested accounting documents.[68]

On December 18 2007, it was announced that Jackson would be executive producer of The Hobbit and its sequel. It was hoped that back-to-back shooting on these films would begin in 2009 for December 2010 and December 2011 releases, respectively. New Line and MGM will co-finance the film, and the latter studio will distribute the films outside North America &mdash; New Line's first ever such deal with another major studio. Producer Mark Ordesky will return to supervise the prequels, and each film will cost around US$150 million. The films are now expected for 2011/2012, and the New Line-MGM distribution agreement remains in place. In April 2008, Guillermo del Toro signed on to direct both pictures, and he will move to New Zealand for four years after finishing Hellboy II: The Golden Army to develop the duology with Jackson and the teams at WETA and Wingnut Films.

The Tolkien Estate filed a lawsuit against New Line on February 11 2008, for violating Tolkien's original deal with Saul Zaentz that they would earn 7.5% of the gross from a film adaptation. The Estate is seeking compensation of $150 million, because they were only paid $62,500 before production of the trilogy began. A court order was also filed that would allow the Tolkien Trust to terminate any rights to future films based on Tolkien's work, including The Hobbit and the second derivative prequel.

Del Toro met with Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis (who hope to reprise their roles as Gandalf and Gollum respectively), concept artists John Howe and Alan Lee, Weta Workshop head Richard Taylor, make-up artist Gino Acevedo and composer Howard Shore to keep continuity with the previous films. Del Toro said that he thought the world of The Hobbit is a "world that is slightly more golden at the beginning, a very innocent environment [...] taking you from a time of more purity to a darker reality throughout the film, but [in a manner] in the spirit of the book". He also intends to push the technology of animatronics to new levels; "We really want to take the state-of-the-art animatronics and take a leap ten years into the future with the technology we will develop for the creatures in the movie. We have every intention to do for animatronics and special effects what the other films did for virtual reality." He will also bring in European comic book artists to compliment Howe and Lee's style on the trilogy, and he wants every actor from the trilogy to reprise their roles.

MGM expressed interest in another prequel film, set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Jackson concurred, stating "one of the drawbacks of The Hobbit is [that] it's relatively lightweight compared to Lord of the Rings... There [are] a lot of sections in which a character like Gandalf disappears for a while. From memory — I mean, I haven't read it for a while now — but I think he references going off to meet with the White Council, who are actually characters like Galadriel and Saruman and people that we see in Lord of the Rings. He mysteriously vanishes for a while and then comes back, but we don't really know what goes on." Del Toro confirmed the sequel would be about "trying to reconcile the facts of the first movie with a slightly different point of view. You would be able to see events that were not witnessed in the first."