I was really hoping to have time for a decent Friday night/end of week movie news dump, but the truth of the matter is that I’ve no time to do one of my usual semi-comprehensive end of week looks at movie news tonight. Fortunately, outside of continuing discussions of how the receipts of “Kick-Ass” will turn out over the weekend, not a huge amount that’s too earth shattering is going on.
However, I do have time for one item that will definitely put a mild damper on the days of hobbit-heads of all shapes and sizes, and aren’t almost all of us at least slightly hobbit-headed. We have word — really more in the nature of a reminder — from none other than producer Peter Jackson that the all-but promised twin film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s unintended prelude to The Lord of the Rings books, The Hobbit, to be directed by Guillermo del Toro aren’t exactly a 100% completely done deal yet, though I’d be beyond shocked if they somehow didn’t happen considering the talent involved and the success of the earlier films.
Nevertheless, the films have not been greenlit and, therefore, no start date has been set. For the same reason, no actual casting has been done. Oh, and by the way, the script was only finished last week. (Well, some movies don’t have a script when shooting starts. Some good ones, too — but not too many that weren’t made by Billy Wilder and none that requires this level of technical preparation.)
Of course, considering everything, doing the films should be a slam dunk but, as previously mentioned in many places the ongoing disaster and ensuing sale of MGM has simply gotten in the way. The Playlist has the details and the, er, gentle reminders to be cool, though most of the actual news is contained in this brief interview with Moviefone.
In the meantime, well, any excuse to run this great musical moment from “Flight of the Chonchords.” How often can you summarize over 10 hours worth of movie in under two minutes, and with such a good collection of beats?
