Over the past several days there have been some hints that the Hobbit film project is not only being delayed but that there is a serious possibility that it may be abandoned.

On July 1, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story saying that MGM will request a sixth extension on its current July 15 deadline for a payment of $250 million principal payment on its debt, as well as $200 million in interest. The request would come about a week before the deadline. One bit of news here is that MGM might end up selling its rights in The Hobbit:

Meanwhile, speculation continues about whether the studio will sell off its share of rights to “The Hobbit” to co-production partner Warner Bros., whose New Line is overseeing project development with director Peter Jackson; shooting is set to begin in January. MGM executives would like to hold onto its share of the “Hobbit” rights as long as possible, but some lenders are lobbying for a sell-off to raise funds.

The story also points out that although a sale of MGM has seemed unlikely, Time Warner still has a pending bid in: “Before its restructuring talks, MGM held an auction that drew a handful of underwhelming offers to buy the studio outright. Warners placed a top bid of $1.5 billion that was deemed too low by lenders but remains on offer.”

I would think that allowing the Hobbit project to fail would cause a pretty serious decline in MGM’s value, since its share in the rights to the novel’s adaptation is one of its main assets. MGM’s owners reportedly have been holding out for a bid of $2 billion before they would consider selling–but maybe the studio wouldn’t be worth that if there were no Hobbit on the horizon. (Presumably no potential buyer thinks that even with the Hobbit project the studio is worth $2 billion, since no offer approaching that was forthcoming.)

On July 3, Ian McKellen caused a stir by mentioning on a morning talk show in New Zealand that he is not firmly committed to playing Gandalf. (The interview is posted on TheOneRing.net.) Further delays might cause him to move on to other projects: “Frankly, I would like to race after doing Waiting For Godot, get on with doing another play but we’ll have to see. I don’t give the producers the impression that I’m sitting waiting.”

Today stuff.co.nz posted a story about how the lack of major film projects in Wellington is causing some filmmaking talent to move elsewhere, notably to long-term contracts on television projects in Auckland. It includes this interesting quotation:

Jackson’s spokesman, Matt Dravitzki, said: “We are working very hard to get The Hobbit made.

“In the event that The Hobbit did not go ahead, [Jackson's] Wingnut Films has a number of other projects in development. Tintin is currently in post-production at Weta Digital and the second Tintin film will be shot in Wellington in the future.”

That might be of comfort to people in Wellington who need filmmaking jobs, but it certainly sounds ominous to those interested in seeing The Hobbit get made.

Of course, there is always the possibility of bringing in film personnel from elsewhere. Australians frequently work on Kiwi films, as when cinematographer Andrew Lesnie shot the LOTR trilogy. And although film productions are required to try and hire New Zealanders and people from abroad with work permits, if no such people are available within the country, the studio can hire from outside. That process, if needed on a large scale, could easily cause further delays.

Ian said in his interview, “An announcement is imminent, but what it will be I genuinely don’t know. It’ll either be that we’re going ahead or that we’re not.” We have heard that sort of thing for a long time now. (Things seemed pretty rosy at Comic-Con last year, and now that event has nearly rolled around again, and we’re still waiting for a greenlight.) Let’s hope he’s right and that we’ll get some real news soon.

A short time ago Ian McKellen tweeted twice:

1. The films will get made. I suspect we’ll start shooting at end of this year. about 4 hours ago via web
2. “Hobbit” sets are ready, script ready and movie is casting this month. Fans are not to worry. about 4 hours ago via web

I try not to post rumors, but Ian is closer to the production than most. Plus I think we all need a little encouragement at this point. Though the end of the year seems a long way off.

Readers no doubt read the news the TheOneRing.net broke Sunday, revealing that Guillermo del Toro has decided to bow out of directing The Hobbit. The delays in getting the project greenlit by Warner Bros. and MGM were frustrating to a director who famously is used to working on several projects at the same time.

Today Stuff.co, the New Zealand news site, has a story on Peter Jackson’s interview with the Dominion Post:

“If that’s what I have to do to protect Warner Bros’ investment, then obviously that’s one angle which I’ll explore,” he said. But stepping in as director would be difficult as he had signed writer and director contracts with Hollywood studios for two other films, with one likely to begin next year. “The other studios may not let me out of the contracts.”

Peter made some comments about when filming might begin, in the light of this dramatic development:

Jackson said The Hobbit’s US$150 million budget was a ballpark figure, but it could be higher if it was filmed in 3-D.

Jackson said November was now the earliest start date for shooting, but it depended on finding the right director. “I just don’t know now until we get a new director. The key thing is that we don’t intend to shut the project down.

“We don’t intend to let this affect the progress. Everybody, including the studio, wants to see things carry on as per normal. The idea is to make it as smooth a transition as we can.”

Of course, the idea of Peter directing The Hobbit is an attractive one to fans, though I would hate to see him forced into doing so simply to save the project.

The stuff.co post has a good summary of the Hobbit situation and its background.

(Thanks to Paulo Pereira for sending me the stuff.co link.)

As many of you know, each spring I go off to Middle Egypt and do volunteer work on an expedition at the site of Tell el-Amarna. There I deal with the statuary fragments. I’ll be gone for four weeks. For internet access, all the members of the team share a single laptop with a pokey dial-up connection. I’m sure all sorts of news will break when I’m there (second script turned in? MGM’s situation resolved? film greenlit?), but I’m not sure I’ll be able to report or comment on it–though I’ll try! I trust TheOneRing.net and other sources to keep you informed. I’ll be back on the job at the end of April.

The media have created a lot of fuss over the past few days over the “June” and “July” dates posted on McKellen.com’s Hobbit entry as the start of shooting for the film.

Today the date of filming in that entry was changed to “at a time to be announced.”

Thus we are back to more-or-less where we were in December, waiting for a greenlight and some official announcements. I must say that this is why I try to avoid posting speculations on casting and start dates and so on. The July date seemed significant, but the official word will ultimately have to come from the studio.

Since my last post, the entry on The Hobbit in McKellen.com filmography has changed. Instead of predicting a June date for filming, it says July. Given that the brief run of Waiting for Godot in Wellington ends on July 2, it’s looking more as if the play’s tour has been timed to allow Ian to be on the spot just in time to don his Gandalf the Grey costume. Let’s hope.

The Dominion Post, Wellington’s local newspaper, has posted a short item on its website. It announces that:

Though the cast for Rings prequel The Hobbit has yet to be officially announced, Sir Ian has said that he will reprise the role of Gandalf the wizard and expects shooting to begin in June this year.

While in Wellington, Sir Ian will also perform in Samuel Beckett’s classic play Waiting for Godot at the St James Theatre from June 30.

I think some people are interpreting this to mean that Ian has just announced that The Hobbit will start shooting in June. My impression is that that information has been posted in his filmography on his website for some time now. (Did anybody notice when that date was added?) The entry also says the first script is finished and the second progressing, that Guillermo del Toro is in New Zealand, and so on, all information we have known for some months now. The release date is given as 201?, which suggests no breaking news.

The main point of the article is that Ian will be playing in Waiting for Godot in Wellington for four performances only, June 30 to July 2 at the St. James Theatre. That sounds as though it’s timed to allow Ian to be in New Zealand during June–but in fact he’s going to be performing the same play in Sydney’s Opera House from June 15 to 27.

Of course, there could be some filming involving Gandalf earlier in the month, or after the Wellington run, in July. But whether Ian’s scheduled presence in the Antipodes this summer is timed to coincide with the commencement of Hobbit shooting or is just a coincidence remains to be seen.

Having seen Godot during its first London run last June, I heartily recommend it to fans in Australia and New Zealand!

[March 17: Actually, Waiting for Godot is touring Australia beginning with Melbourne, May 6-23, then Perth, May 28 to June 3, on to Adelaide, June 9-11, and ending in Sydney, June 15-27. So no shooting involving Gandalf will go on during that period, it seems fair to assume. Not to say that there couldn't be filming with other characters, but we just don't have any information.]

On Friday TheOneRing.net posted a story about Variety’s story of the same day, concerning New Line’s successful transition into making a smaller number of medium-budget genre films. Many of those who clicked on the link, however, must have run afoul of Variety’s new pay-wall. Being a subscriber, I’ll pull out some more bits of information and try to tease some inferences out of them.  (For those who subscribe or who want to sign up to get a few Variety articles free, the story is here.) more »

It’s been a while since I posted. I’m currently in Berlin, busily doing research on statuary fragments at the Egyptian Museum. The city has experienced it’s biggest snowfall in decades, so I’m trudging through snowy, icy sidewalks on my way to and from the S-Bahn.

There hasn’t been a lot of LOTR/Hobbit news recently, but I spotted an interesting article in the New York Times. It’s about Avatar and whether it’s new motion-capture technology will have an immediate impact on Hollywood filmmaking. The basic answer is, not much, not yet. The next round of big fantasy films have either started without the new technology (e.g., Iron Man II) or won’t be out for a long time (e.g., Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, made with much the same technology).

The most interesting passage for us fans is that The Hobbit is still not planned to be in 3D, and given that the pre-viz is being edited, I suspect it’s a bit late for a change of mind on that. Here’s what the article says on that subject:

So far, Guillermo del Toro, who is expected to direct the first of a two-part fantasy series based on “The Hobbit” for release in 2012, has stuck with a plan to film that movie with more conventional, 2-D techniques, even though Mr. Jackson — a powerful force behind both “Avatar” and “Tintin” — is among his producers.

Executives of Warner’s New Line Cinema unit, one of the studios behind the project, have in the past said that they believed that 2-D would be well suited to the sense of intimacy they anticipated from “The Hobbit” and its fantasy universe — and nothing about “Avatar” appears to have changed that plan.

As far as I know, there’s nothing significant about that mention of 2012 as the release date for The Hobbit.

One subject that keeps coming up in the article is how much Avatar cost. I’m sure New Line, Warner Bros., and MGM have no desire to lay out hundreds of millions of extra dollars for a technique that neither the director nor the fans are clamoring for. Avatar got made the way it did because James Cameron was bound and determined to follow his own vision of the project. As with Titanic, it turns out he was justified, but not everybody is quite that enthusiastic about 3D and especially this very expensive new process for creating it.

Variety reports that bidding for MGM will begin within the next few weeks. The article has a good rundown on the situation: what companies own shares in MGM currently, what assets the studio has, how much it owes, which studios are likely to bid, and so on.

MGM is still considered to be a co-financer of The Hobbit, the rights to which are one of the studio’s major assets. The most salient part of the article is this:

Speculation has focused mostly on Time Warner Inc. as a likely bidder, since it has over than $9 billion in cash from the recent spinoff of its cable systems and would regain full control over “The Hobbit.” Time Warner also owns the pre-1985 MGM library through its 1996 buyout of Turner Broadcasting and made an eleventh-hour bid in 2004 for MGM but was topped by an investor group led by Sony.

Time Warner owns Warner Bros., which absorbed New Line after its financial problems began. New Line is a distinct production unit and will be in charge of making The Hobbit. Still, Warner is the other co-financer on the film, so the simplest solution as far as the production of the two films is concerned would probably be for Time Warner to acquire MGM. The prospect of News Corp. (which owns Twentieth Century Fox) buying MGM and coming in on the project boggles the mind just a bit.