So this is it. The Hobbit. The movie everyone denied they were even thinking of making. And we’re not getting one, we’re getting two. The news was announced at the end of 2007, but I’ve not been thinking about it much since we’re not going to see anything until 2011 and I don’t want to end up in a fever 2 years too early. But, I thought I’d blog incase you hadn’t noticed any news.

Here’s the official blog entry covering the announcement. This is from the official blog website, www.TheHobbitBlog.com.

In April we found out that Guillermo del Toro would be directing. This is quite exciting but also scary at the same time, maybe we all want the Jackson vision, but we’re going to get del Toro’s and it might not be what we’re expecting. On the other hand, del Toro’s certainly got visual flair and it’ll be interesting to see what he can do with the Tolkein material.

Other than that, so far everything else is pretty much a rumour. Ian McKellen is rumoured to be reprising his Gandalf role, I hope that is true. There has been some confusion about what the ‘sequel’ will be, and Newline have stated it will be book material only, although no one is sure which book. The only rumoured release date at the present is December 2011. This would match the December releases of the Lord of the Rings movies. If we assume 19th December 2011 it will be exactly 10 years after the release of the Lord of the Rings (19th December 2001). If it is December 19th 2011, then it’s only 3 Years and 158 Days to go …