Production on The Hobbit Delayed

Variety is reporting that due to needing more time to work on the script for the second The Hobbit film, production on the project will delayed by three months to middle of next summer. What impact this will have on the desired release date of December 2011 and December 2012 for the two films is unknown.

I don't see this delay effecting the release date just yet as a lot of the work for making the deadline isn't so much the filming itself but in the special effects production work which will be going on from now until the second movie is out. As an example of feasibility, the Transformers films did not start filming before the camera's until the year before their release dates, but actual work on design and special effects began nearly a year before that, a time table the Hobbit is currently following, even if unintentionally.