Del Toro Quits 'The Hobbit'

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

...the director leaving the film. In most cases, this would not be considered progress.

Ha! Depends on your point of view, I guess.

In this case, though, it surely is a blow to the project. I was excited to see Del Toro's darker, more fantastic sensibility in The Hobbit. I can't say I'm surprised, though, the way things have been dragging out with all the legal battles and MGM's financial troubles. I'm sure GDT's career has lost some steam while spinning wheels in New Zealand for a couple of years only to come up empty-handed. It's a tough business.

It will be very interesting to see what happens in terms of a new director. At this point it seems logical for Jackson to step in. Tintin is in the can, and he got a palette-cleansing, smaller scale film out of his system with The Lovely Bones. If they go with a new name director, it seems inevitable that they'll have to go back to the drawing board with the script and design. I suppose there's always the chance that Jackson could go more the Empire-era Lucas route and get a "hired-gun" kind of director to execute the vision that's already been generated.

The business of bringing The Hobbit to the big screen has become a saga in and of itself, hasn't it?