Del Toro on Hobbit Shoot and More

As part of the promotion of the recent DVD release of Hellboy II, the Hobbit director Guillermo Del Toro answered some questions about his Hobbit plans.

There any professionals who worked with you on Hellboy II that will be joining you on the Hobbit?
Hopefully Mignola, Barlowe, Spectral Motion, Guillermo Navarro and others…

Will there be any cool creatures in Hobbit like in Hellboy 2?
Many many more and we will be pushing the goblin kindgom. we will be pushing smaug, the spiders of mirkwood. we will be pushing them to the edge of technology where we will fuse animatronics and cgi into a seamless new art form in creating creatures, i think.

Do you plan to use any particular effects or techniques in the Hobbit that were used in Hellboy II?
Well, yes, but used in a different way. You will see some mind-boggling mixture of CGI / Puppetry like never before. The demarcation of where one technique ends and the other begins will NOT be as clean as in HBII or BLADE II or PAN’S LABYRINTH. I am going to push further than ever on both fronts.

When does filming for the Hobbit begin?
It will begin in 2010 and we will shoot for about 370 days or so…

How long did it take to create the script for this movie?
For the record- neither Peter Jackson nor I had the faintest contact about the HOBBIT movies prior to the absolute completion of HELLBOY II. I got Peter’s first call in December 2007- way after we wrapped the film. So, the visuals in the HOBBIT movie are not anticipated in the HBII movie.

Does Mike Mignola have any involvement with you on The Hobbit?
I hope and pray he joins us at the design stage for a week or two.

Who are your top choices to play Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming Hobbit Movies?
Hopefully, very soon we can reveal that-

Del Toro: "Two Chapters of a Film"

For a while now, the plans for the Hobbit films has been spoken of as two films. One is the adaption of the Hobbit and the other is a "bridge" film that fills the gap between the Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring. In an interview with if Magazine, director Guillermo del Toro indicates the two movie plan remains but now its evolved into essentially one film with two parts, similar to how the Matrix sequels were executed.

Where are you with THE HOBBIT right now?
Writing every day. Talking to Peter [Jackson]. Emailing. Going to New Zealand back and forth. I really think that the bulk of the hardcore pre-production is going to start in January.

Are you writing two scripts simultaneously?
The way we view it, and I think it was Peter who said, “let’s stop talking about two movies, let’s talk about one story.” I thought “abso-f*cking-lutely.” Then it made sense. I was so worried about this and that. Then all of sudden, seeing it as one narrative, saying, “this is the story” and not only the two movies. When we agreed, “let’s think about the five movies as a single story – a single narrative thread,” it opened up the scope of what we’re doing. You don’t have to try to contain the HOBBIT book in one movie, which I think would be a disservice. People tend to think, “why two movies,” and you go back and take notes of the book. The book you read, is not the book that [you think it is]. The book is such an effortless read and it seems like it goes like a breeze, but there are so many events in THE HOBBIT. Especially if you’re taking into account, ancillary stuff, there’s so much there. It really is barely containable into two movies.

You’re linking it into the first LORD OF THE RINGS movie – I read that the last part of the second film would include material not in the book, but would link it more fully to the first LORD film.
We’re not doing that. That was spoken about early on, as I said, we stopped talking about in terms of a bridge film, it’s a single film. We said, “we’re talking about a ‘film’ and we’re talking about two chapters of a film or two episodes.”

So I guess at this point think of the Lord of the Rings prequel films as The Hobbit part 1 and The Hobbit part 2.