The Director of The Hobbit also claimed that he’s not worried about having his Hobbit movies compared to the critical and commercial success reached by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

He told Simon: “Frankly no. If I live the experience like that I would go insane. I don’t know if there’s a compartment in my brain that just doesn’t register those things. I feel an enormous responsibility but not to the results, either by Oscars or box office.”

He also went on to add: “I have an enormous responsibility to a book I adore and to a legacy of a world. Creatively I feel very responsible and very daunted, but honoured, doing this.”

He did admit that so far he was finding The Hobbit very demanding saying that he gets in The Hobbit office at 9am and rarely leaves before 9pm. He is currently dividing his time between working on the screenplay and designing the creatures of Middle Earth at the WETA studios.

I’ve been very impressed with GDT in all his interviews so far and his answers over the last 12 months or so have exorcised any lingering worries I had as to whether he was the man for The Hobbit.

I’m pretty sure Bilbo Baggins and Co. are in safe hands.

A third Hobbit movie would be the so called ‘bridging movie’ which would fill in the gap between the end of The Hobbit and the start of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Assuming The Hobbit movies are the success we expect them to be, the opportunity to bring the old cast from The Lord of the Rings movies together with the new cast of The Hobbit movies will be far too hard to resist for the money men of Hollywood while having more artistic license will probably be too hard for Peter Jackson to resist.

It was originally going to be the second Hobbit movie but Del Toro decided The Hobbit required 2 movies to do the book justice as he also wants to cover The White Council and Dol Guldur within his movies.

Del Toro has told MTV that we as fans should already know where he will break his 2 movies.

“When you read the book, there is only one place to break it really and everybody knows it. It’s been discussed in forums and there’s a lot of people that are right. That’s where it’s going to break. So it’s very simple.”

“What we’re doing is because we have the relationship between Bilbo and Thorin and all the dwarves, there is a logical place for that relationship. There is a moment in the book where something is accomplished that allows us to say, Okay, on to the next one after this.”

Where does Del Toro intend to break the movies and will Peter Jackson return to the directors chair for one last visit to Middle Earth?

In January Del Toro had said they had narrowed it down to 4 possible actors but none of the 4 were aware they were being considered.

Now Del Toro, Jackson and Co. have decided who they want but he says the actor in question has still not as yet been approached.

Keeping possible names to themselves has certainly worked with rumors being very thin on the ground and with the part of Bilbo Baggins being muted as ‘the role of the decade’ it’s hard to imagine any actor turning down the part so no worries for Del Toro there.

It must be a nice feeling knowing you can choose any actor in the world but it also comes with a lot of pressure. Who ever they choose, it’s not going to match everyone’s idea of Bilbo baggins.

You can see what Del Toro said about the part of Bilbo baggins in the video below.

Source: MTV Movies

Judge Ann Jones turned away arguments from the defense that the nature of all the lawsuits claims were such that a jury wasn’t required and she should consider them herself.

She also denied an alternative defense motion that asked for her to ‘decide’ on some claims while others went to a jury.

“I am reluctant to do something serially that I can do simultaneously, I do not want these (witnesses) to come back twice” Jones said.

The door was left slightly ajar though for lawyers of New Line Cinema when the judge said she may be pursuaded at a later date to change her mind and split the case into two phrases.

Bonnie E. Eskenazi, an attorney for the Tolkien trust said “Jones’ rulings mean the trial will proceed like most trials do.”

Tolkien’s heirs are also alleging breach of contract and asking the court to force New Line Cinema to hand over accounts of profits from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Tolkien Trust, a British registered charity set up in 1977 to manage future profits made from the authors works, claim the original deal to the rights of the books included 7.5% of gross movie receipts and merchandise less certain costs going to the charity.

The trial is set to start on October 19th. What this might mean for The Hobbit movie remains to be seen but with filming due to start during the court case it looks like The Tolkien Trust timed it pretty well if they were looking for any kind of leverage.

It’s also understandable why New Line Cinema did not want a jury trial when news of The Hobbit movies will be common place by the time they are selected.

Trying to cast themselves as the good guys against a charitable trust when production of 2 more Tolkien works is under way is going to be very difficult, especially when The Hobbit movies are both practically guaranteed to be blockbusters.

The first game is already in development and will be called The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest, an action adventure played in the 3rd person and targeted at all ages. Future games based on The Lord of the Rings will be targeting the adult gamer with The Hobbit games presumably aimed at the younger market,

The President of WB Interactive Entertainment said:

“The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest is the first of many different types of games we will be developing with the film and literary rights. It is also the first game allowing kids and their families to interact in their favorite locations and stories from The Lord of the Rings with accessible gameplay.”

Aragorn’s Quest begins with Hobbiton preparing to welcome the King of Aragorn with a great party to thank both him and Sam Gamgee for their part in the war of The ring.

The children of Hobbiton want to learn more about this king and his quests so Samwise who by now is mayor of Hobbiton sits them down and tells them all about him, from his days as a ranger known as Strider to his valiant battles in the war of the ring.

As Samwise tells these stories players assume the role of Aragorn and have to complete these quests before moving to the next story. The Wii platform will allow 2 player gameplay which will bring Gandalf into the action to help Aragorn on his way.

Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest will be out on various platforms this Fall.

The two reveal more about dropping the idea of the ‘bridging’ movie and their new idea of filming The Hobbit over two movies.

They tell Empire that the movies will not be just the journey of Bilbo and the dwarves however and they plan to expand the story to include both Sauron’s story as well as Gandalf’s comings and goings.

Jackson: We just decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit and it allows us to make the Hobbit in a little more of the style, if you like, of the trilogy, too.
Del Toro: To make a movie of the Hobbit that didn’t go over three hours
Jackson: You would be rushing along…
Del Toro: You would be losing iconic moments. The animated version avoids Beorn, who is a great character, and some people always feel that you should lose the Spiders (of Mirkwood), or this or that. We wanted to keep every iconic moment that was in the book and give it some weight.

When asked how they are to handle the Dwarves Jackson says they plan to choose 5 or 6 to develop ‘interesting’ relationships with Bilbo and how they want to avoid simply having Thorin and 12 sidekicks.

Jackson is also at pains to point out that The Hobbit movies ARE going to be different to his Lord of the Rings trilogy in the article.

“What I think everybody has to get right in their minds is that we’re creating a Middle-earth that’s pretty much the same as the trilogy’s Middle-earth. Hobbiton is going to look like the same place. Hobbits are going to look the same. But it’s another guy going in with his own filmmaking style. That’s why I think this could be a better idea for him to direct these films than me. Let’s all see what somebody else does with Middle-earth. Let’s go in there with another director and another set of lenses and another cameraman, and see what they do with it. I think that’s exciting. He’s not pretending to be me. People have got to get that into their heads.”

Talk of filming The Hobbit in 3D is still ongoing because the worry is that shooting in 3D will distort the tonality set by the original trilogy.

Shooting of The Hobbit movies will begin in March 2010.

Order your copy of Empire by clicking here.

The Hunt for Gollum is another fan made unofficial Middle Earth movie that has received acclaim based on the 2 teaser trailers released so far.

The 45 minute movie follows the Heir of Isildur; the “greatest huntsman and traveler in Middle Earth” on his journey to find the creature Gollum. The creature has to be found to discover the truth about the Ring to protect the future Ringbearer. The script is adapted from elements of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings.

The Hunt for Gollum was made on handouts of just £3000 (about $4000) but was possible as all the actors, film crew etc. did it as a labor of love and weren’t paid for any of their work. Because of trademark/copyright laws, the movie was never made with the intention of making any kind of profit.

It will be available live on the evening of May 3rd (gmt) for free streaming of the full movie on the official The Hunt for Gollum website while simultaneously being premiered at the London Sci-fi festival.

Tickets for the premiere are free but limited but if you are in London and want to check it out you can get details at the Sci-Fi London website by clicking here.

Check out the 2 trailers and details about the making of The Hunt for Gollum at the official website by clicking here.

What did you think of the trailers? Considering their budget how does their Middle Earth stand up?

As well as The Hobbit  joining the digital world, HarperCollins have also released The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Children of Hurin in the same format and plan to release all of Tolkien’s back catelogue.

The books contain the maps and runes which accompanied the original print versions.

David Roth-Ey, digital director at HarperCollins explained “This is something that the fans so clearly wanted. Releasing Tolkien in e-books is something that has long been a goal of ours and we wanted to create high quality legal versions of these books. It was a long  process with the maps and runes, it’s slightly more complicated than digitising your average thriller.”

On the 5th May they will be releasing digital versions of  The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. These releases are timed to generate interest in the never before published The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun which will be published in hard back on the same day. Click here for details.

Other Tolkien books to be released digitally later in the year include The History of Middle Earth, Tales from the Perilous Realm and Letters from Father Christmas.

Managing Director at UK based HarperCollins Amanda Ridout said: “HarperCollins is immensely privileged to be the publisher of J R R Tolkien—one of the most admired and loved authors of the 20th century. This marks a new and exciting chapter when we can bring his great works in a new format to additional readers of all ages around the world.”

HarperCollins paid an undisclosed amount for the world wide digital rights to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and other works by Tolkien and the releases today are world wide.

They are available in the epub format within the UK by clicking here.

In America they are available in the Kindle format from Amazon by clicking here

“We’ve decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur,” Del Toro tells them in this months 20th birthday issue due out next week.

The special edition carries interviews with both Guillermo Del Toro and Peter Jackson and PJ adds to the above by saying:

“We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie, The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy.”

Quite a turn around to earlier statements, especially with just about every recognisable actor from the Lord of the Rings letting it be known they would be available for the ‘bridging’ movie.

Of course, they don’t say there won’t be a bridging movie and its possible that we could end up with another 3 movies from Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

The demand would certainly be there although dipping into the Silmarillion for the story brings its own legal problems

The special edition of Empire comes out on the 23rd of April and is guest edited by none other than Steven Spielberg. They needed a big story and it looks like The Hobbit has provided it.

You can pre-order this months Empire by clicking here.

Pre-order your copy here.

Middle Earth fans have been waiting for this release since Blu-Ray first hit the scene and you can expect copies to be hard to find without a pre-order once it’s released, probably during the coming holiday season.

They will be the theatrical release rather than the much better (and longer) extended versions. Not unexpected though as Warner Bros. let it be known some time ago that the extended Blu-Ray Lord of the Rings will be released to coincide with the cinema release of The Hobbit.

Technical spec’s have not been announced as of yet but for those that understand such things I am told we can expect at a minimum - 1080p VC-1 video accompanied by a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack.

358 minutes and rated PG-13, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King are all included in the Blu-Ray box set and while this will be the 4th copy of each that I will have purchased I doubt I will hang back and wait for the extended versions.

Pre-order your copy of Lord of the Rings on Blu-Ray here.