After a bunch of delays and a ton of money, director Guillermo del Toro has decided not to direct the obvious money-maker that is THE HOBBIT in order to do some other stuff. The good news is that the movie doesn’t currently have a director, the gooder news is that Peter Jackson (who you may recall is producing and what-not) has said that he is open to the idea of taking over the directing chores if they don’t find anyone else and if he can get out of the other directing obligations that he has…the ones that no one else knows about. This all comes from Stuff.
I don’t see how you can blame del Toro for wanting to take off considering this movie really isn’t anywhere near filming since it was announced about two years ago. With that said, I’m really not too sad to see him go either. I know everyone loves to suck on Guillermo del Toro’s toes, but it’s my uneducated opinion that he’s pretty average as far as film creators go. HELLBOY was good, PAN’S LABYRINTH was depressing and slow, and HELLBOY 2 was terrible. Getting Peter Jackson behind the camera again would be the best thing that could have happened to this movie and it’s, honestly, how it should have always been.