Looks like Guillermo del Toro’s “The Hobbit” isn’t as far into development as everyone believes. Speaking at Comic-Con, producer Peter Jackson has revealed that the two part feature has actually yet to even receive the studio’s green light and hence any rumors of casting let alone pre-production would be premature.
“People assume we have a green light and we are making the movie, which we don’t,” the director revealed. “We have to deliver the script and the studio has to approve the script and then we have to budget that script because we have no budget yet. They aren’t going to make the film with an open checkbook so we have to figure out how much its going to cost and if that is going to be okay.”
“So we have a process to go through. Once we get the script delivered we can break it down, we can do the budgeting, we can figure out schedules and we can move on to the second script that we have to obviously start writing immediately… and then we can start casting the movie. Once we have a budget and once the studio green-lights the movie, at that point we can start casting. Everybody assumes then we have been casting and they are waiting for announcements which isn’t the case at all.”
Interesting that in this financial market, not even the prequels to a trilogy that grossed nearly 3 billion dollars worldwide gets the nod straight away. Jackson previously noted that the aforementioned first script was due for completion and submission in about three weeks. So any proper casting wouldn’t take place until the last quarter of this year at the earliest? [TheOneRing]
Isn't there still a lingering issue with the property rights for the story? I'm sure this of all projects given the trilogy's success would be worth green-lighting before a script was completed. What are they looking to budget this at, something crazy like $200 million?