Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Yates, Ratnor or Jackson to Direct The Hobbit

Now that Guillermo del Toro has stepped down as the director of The Hobbit, the focus has shifted to who will take over the helm. Over the weekend three names popped up as rumored to take over while an old favorite is being asked to sign on.

/Film is reporting that David Yates is the front runner to take over with Paramount and MGM behind the choice. Yates is the director of the last four Harry Potter films so he has plenty of fantasy and working with CGI. However, that idea has already been dashed as the director's representation told TheWrap that the rumor is "not true at all."

Yates may be out, but Deadline reports that David Bobkin and Brett Ratner are in the running. Bobkin directed the Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus and Shanghai Knights. Ratner directed X-Men 3, Rush Hour films, among others. It seems these names were thrown into the pop to scare Lord of the Rings Trilogy director Peter Jackson into bowing to studio pressure to add Director to his Executive Producer and Writer credits for the two Hobbit films. Deadline says "Warner Bros and MGM brass are doing all they can to sell Jackson on the seemingly obvious notion that he should complete the franchise he started..."

I think fans are in agreement the ideal situation would be for Peter Jackson to take over but he said before that "the other studios may not let me out of the contracts." The MGM bankruptcy has made a mess of things and really until that is settled there is no telling how things will shake out.

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