Guillermo del Toro Will Direct "The Hobbit"

jagermeister101 tips us to news that Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings production team have officially selected Guillermo del Toro to direct the upcoming Hobbit film and its sequel. del Toro's resume includes films such as Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, and Blade 2. This confirms rumors which began after the controversy between Jackson and New Line Cinemas was resolved last year.

Comments

Re:What's the draw?

[Mystic Pixel]

Tolkien's works have links to far older bodies of literature, such as the Finnish epic Kalevala and Beowulf (he was often regarded as a leading expert on the latter.) Many of his writings are taken very seriously by those in the academic literary community; he had a lot to say about the 'fairy tale' as an important story-telling tool -- specifically his essay The Monsters and the Critics (more info).

There are serious undergraduate and graduate level literature classes on Tolkien, and his universe provides an interesting linguistic study as well. Granted, he started writing The Hobbit as a children's story, and it's not among the top tier of his work. However, the later trilogy became much more, and I daresay few literary professors would write it off as you are wont to do.

Furthermore, if you want anyone to take your viewpoint seriously, you do yourself a disservice by misspelling his name.

Re:What's the draw?

[1u3hr]

So what would say is first rate fantasy then?

I don't want to disparage JRRT. He created a whole genre, he had immense integrity. I loved his books when I was a teenager. But he wasn't a great wordsmith.

A few who have surpassed him, IMHO:

• Ursula K Le Guin
• Fritz Leiber
• Michael Moorcock
• Gene Wolfe
• Roger Zelazny

Not everything by these authors is "great" some are a bit uneven, but their best work is really "first rate" literature by any standard.

I've never gone for the doorstop fantasy trilogies that fill many bookshop fantasy shelves. Some may be good, but I never felt the urge to try them, they just looked so derivative. I doubt though I'm missing anything by bypassing Robert Jordan. I'm told that George RR Martin's is pretty good though, I liked his earlier work.

Re:What's the draw?

[h4rm0ny]

Hellboy was an excellent piece of work considering that it was a daft comic book adventure. Ron Perlman was great (as usual) and little details such as the rooftop conversation with the little boy changed the movie utterly from being a simplistic series of fights to something that genuinely made you laugh and get involved with the characters.

The problem with Guillermo doing The Hobbit is not that he would do a bad film - I'm sure that he will do as good an adaptation as he is allowed to do by producers and budget (though he will inevitably get slated by people who think the film should be just like the LotR films). No, the problem with Guillermo doing The Hobbit is that he wont be doing something else more unusual or unlikely. He is supposed to be getting on with an adaptation of H.P.Lovecraft's "At the Mountain's of Madness" and I personally would really like to see that. It's going to take someone of Guillermo's ability and heft to get this done properly. I'll be dissapointed if the Hobbit took its place.

Re:What's the draw?

[grassy_knoll]

Dude.

You have GOT to watch Blade 2 with the directors commentary on. It's hysterical! Del Toro talking about "the vampire Michael Bolton!" had me laughing like a maniac.