Now that I’m back from Italy, I’ve been catching up with the many little pieces of Hobbit-project news that have come out since my departure on June 25. Of course Guillermo Del Toro has been helping to publicize Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and of course just about every interviewer asked him about The Hobbit.

If you’ve read the fourth chapter of The Frodo Franchise, where I discuss press junkets and interviews, you’ll know that these interviews often include the same frequently asked questions over and over. Watching or reading the interviews that have appeared over the past three weeks or so, it’s obvious he has his answers ready and can deliver them very articulately. As GDT said in his chat with Quint on Ain’t It Cool News (July 12),

It’s in the early stages of investigation and I have never been asked so many questions about a project that hasn’t been started or a script that is not written and it’s natural, but I’ve been dealing with it since we started promoting THE ORPHANAGE, when I didn’t even know if it was going to go which way, so THE ORPHANAGE … The HELLBOY set visits or the HELLBOY junkets … [all] of that ends up with me answering about THE HOBBIT […] unfortunately once you run out of answers you run out of answers.

And in the “Den of Geek!” interview (July 14), he remarked, “I’ve never talked so much about a project that doesn’t even have a screenplay! It’s almost like people want photos of the baby while it’s still in the womb.”

Filmmaking is a slow process

One thing that frequently amazes me about interviews and reports is how little time people—even those who report regularly on the entertainment industry—seem to think moviemaking takes. A brief piece on Scifi.com (June 26) claims, “The film is scheduled to begin shooting later this year in New Zealand. Del Toro said that the films are still in the early stages of pre-conception and aren’t even officially in preproduction yet. He has, however, been making regular trips to New Zealand to visit Weta Workshop, the special-effects house that will be working on the films.” There’s no way that shooting (i.e., principal photography) could start this year. It seems unlikely that the script will even be finished by the end of this year. Even pre-viz (i.e., digitally animated storyboards) is unlikely to start until next year. Let’s not forget that according to Peter Jackson and GDT, all of next year will be given over to pre-production.

People who are well aware that principal photography is still far off persist in asking GDT questions he cannot possibly answer. The script is the basis for virtually every stage of filmmaking. It lets the designers know how many sets and costumes are needed; it tells the casting director what roles must be filled; it indicates what sorts of special effects are required. All the questions about budgets that interviewers keep asking GDT are pointless, since the budget is determined on the basis of the script. I’m sure the designers are getting preliminary ideas, and obviously some material will be reused from the trilogy. Casting is still fairly far off, but so far we can be pretty sure that Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis will be reprising their roles. But scripting two feature films on this scale is no short task, and we can’t expect a whole lot of concrete information about The Hobbit until it’s done.

GDT himself warned about this in a July 4 post on the TORN forums. There will be no real news about The Hobbit in the immediate future. “That said, being on the HBII junket tour, many a question will have to do with ‘The Hobbit’ and the answer that will be given will be pallid variations on themes already familiar to TORN readers.”

Nevertheless, GDT obviously being a genial person and wanting to please the fans, he does try to answer the questions. When he’s asked an interesting question, he says interesting things. Not big news, to be sure, but they go beyond being “pallid variations.” I’ve gone through a lot of recent interviews and stories to cull the highlights concerning The Hobbit and “Film 2.” Most of these I found through TheOneRing.net, and if I don’t mention some others that they have linked to, it’s because I found that they covered the same information that was given in other sources.

The interviews, more or less in chronological order

I. Hollywood.com was one of several sites that interviewed GDT at the Saturn Awards, where he received a lifetime achievement award. (Posted June 25.) A few interesting remarks:

On The Hobbit not being a “family film”:

I never think in those terms. For me, Blade II is a family film. I’m really thwarted that way. I feel that obviously being faithful to the source, I would love for this to be a movie that can be enjoyed by fathers and sons, by mothers and daughters. I would love in that sense, but very often when you use the word family film, it can conjure watering down things. I believe that Tolkien had, in the last third of the book, I wouldn’t say an edge but had a somber tone that normally would not conjure the term family.

On where the Hobbit project stood at that point:

Barely started. We have had preliminary chats. We have had a chat where we sketch out what we think of the two movies, but there’s no writing. There is note taking. There is breaking down the novel. There is a lot of work already being done on our part but real preproduction will not start until late July.

On his plans for going to New Zealand:

I’m going to be going every two weeks. We start preconceptualizations both in New Zealand and LA. I open the conceptualization shop in August. I travel to Weta to start doing some more research and development and I’m going to be going to New Zealand every two weeks or so. Spend a week there, spend a week, for me it’s like commuting to Burbank. I’m used to these things.

That’s a pretty daunting idea! It’s a 12-hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, a transfer between terminals, and a one-hour flight to Wellington. Of course, what’s waiting at that end is pretty wonderful.

(In the AICN interview linked above, GDT says that in the spring “I’ll be going more and more to New Zealand until I finally completely move there.”)

II. As TORN says, one of the most-quoted interviews was posted on Collider.com as a pair of video clips (June 25). In the first part, Del Toro reveals what he’ll be doing in the near future:

Right now, what I know I need to do is, from now until December I’m putting to bed 85% of what I was going to do before The Hobbit happened. Because there were so many things going, and then The Hobbit came in and cancelled essentially my life for the next four years [...] It’s worth me putting everything on the back burner, but I have to put it to bed. So the next eight months is about putting to bed stuff before I go and do The Hobbit.

What these other projects are he doesn’t say. Certainly Del Toro has been active in producing and executive producing various Mexican and Spanish films for other directors. Currently the Internet Movie Data Base lists eight such projects in various stages of pre-production, filming, and so on. Perhaps he will pass some of these on to others. One project that was in pre-production last year, an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness,” is no longer active. For information on that, see the official fansite’s page on the project. (In the Collider.com and other interviews, GDT mentions wanting to make a third Hellboy movie after The Hobbit, so who knows when and if “At the Mountains of Madness” will get made.)

The second part of the Collider.com interview has some interesting scraps of information. To my regret, GDT will not be at Comic-Con this year. He’ll be down in New Zealand instead. I don’t suppose I would have had a chance to meet him at Comic-Con, but who knows?

He also reveals that his favorites among his own films are Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone, and Hellboy II. I must say that although the superhero genre is not one of my favorites, I did enjoy the first Hellboy, which is very well directed. (The sequel has been very favorably reviewed. Variety’s John Anderson loved it, calling it “the hipster’s hit of the summer.” I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it.)

GDT’s treatment of the stunts in Hellboy II also reveals some hints as to how the special effects of The Hobbit will be approached. Rather than using wires for the jumping and flying stunts, his team used concealed trampolines in the sets (for many years a common technique in Hong Kong martial-arts films). “The entire idea is to create in The Hobbit an incredibly painterly, incredibly beautiful world that has a different texture than the trilogy. That you can feel the creatures are real and they rely on augmented animatronics and puppets rather than CG.”

III. I couldn’t get the video on the MTV.com interview (July 2) to run properly, but it’s all in the transcript anyway. It’s one of the more interesting items, since the interviewer, Shawn Adler, avoids the usual FAQs (with some of the questions having been submitted by fans).

Asked about the fact that Viggo Mortensen, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, and Orlando Bloom have all expressed interest in being in the upcoming films, GDT replies:

They said that? I’m a f—ing fan of all of them! The thing is that here and there in the book, in the existing book, there are places to have them almost casually, in secondary roles that are not that important but that would be incredibly enhancing as cameos go. But it is the second movie that is the treasure trove of possibilities. I believe the second movie will be present as an opportunity of enthusiasm and creation. I frankly look forward to that one so much. I really want us to prove that we have a solid concept for that, but the promise of that land is absolutely mind-boggling!

Most of those actors sound more plausible for “Film 2” than for The Hobbit, but it’s plausible that their characters could return. Of course Legolas would make perfect sense as a minor role in The Hobbit, perhaps appearing in the Battle of Five Armies.

Asked when we might learn the title of “Film 2,” GDT says,

When we know where we are going to take it. We are going to have the big pow-wow about story and script, and start those processes officially after taking notes and readings and talking. Then we’ll know. Funnily enough, I think the title is incredibly delicate on the second film because it will immediately tell you what it is. It cannot be “The Hobbit 2″ because that sounds like “Electric Boogaloo”! [Laughs]

I must confess to being intrigued by the idea of mining the appendices for story material. It’s a bit like fanfiction, where amateur authors search the books for inspiration and write additional scenes to fill in the gaps left by Tolkien. Here fanfiction techniques would be used on a professional level. Some fans of the book might be horrified, but in an age when there can be a sequel to Gone with the Wind written decades later by a different author and familiar tales retold from different viewpoints, like Wicked, classics are no longer sacred.

GDT says that he would like to involve Ian Holm in the film in some fashion, but it seems extremely unlikely that an actor in his 80s could convincingly portray a 50-year-old hobbit.

(The second part of this interview isn’t as interesting, since people persist in asking questions that GDT can’t or won’t answer.)

IV. Dark Horizons posted an interview on July 3. Asked if there was a possibility that The Hobbit would be broken into two films, GDT responded:

I don’t see a middle point. I think the book should be contained if possible in the first movie, but this is an exploration. The second one would be a movie that would [weave] through the gap of about half a century between the hobbit and the first of the trilogy films and connect them. Ideally, we would have a creator overture and sort of a first movement to a symphony of five films. It is too early. When people ask me where I am with Hobbit, I say I’m in post with Hellboy I’m in post on the Lovely Bones that is where we are on the Hobbit. Three weeks from now I will be more and more able to answer.

(We’re coming up on three weeks, so maybe we’ll hear something more soon.)

V. USA Today (July 7) includes an interesting comment on the scripting process: “Del Toro will write the first film’s screenplay. Jackson, his filmmaking partner-wife, Fran Walsh, and their writing partner, Philippa Boyens, will work on the second. Then they plan to switch and rewrite each other.” There’s also more on the slightly dark quality that GDT may bring to The Hobbit. He points out that Tolkien was highly influenced by World War I:

That is a very important theme that I’m attracted to … a character with an unerring ethical sense, thrown out into a world of full of pride and greed and madness, and makes it there and back. The ethics and the fate and the character will be tested. At the end of the day, there will be a tragic sense of loss, but there will be the survival of that temperament and belief.

VI. In a number of interviews GDT has mentioned that he wants to give The Hobbit a visually distinctive look. The IGN.com interview (July 9) contains a succinct statement of his plans:

I think that the whole idea is to make the first movie — The Hobbit movie — almost freestanding on its own right. And then in the second movie to create a look that naturally progresses and changes into the look of the trilogy. But the first movie will stand on its own merits and on its own world. We won’t change the characters and we won’t change the actors portraying them. And we will rigorously respect the guidelines established. But I think you’re going to see a lot of stuff you haven’t never seen ever… ever! Forget about the trilogy only… ever in cinema.

He has this to say about “Film 2”:

That’s the film that has to be found — that has to be constructed carefully for many, many reasons. Not just artistic ones. It has to feel relevant and connective, and it has to feel seamless. That is the film that most belongs as a joining effort to the trilogy. And that’s the film we’re going to work the hardest on in the next six months. There are many more questions than there are answers at this stage. But in my heart of hearts, I believe we found a way to do it. I don’t want to spoil it. I’m not being coy and I’m not faking it. I really think we found it, but I’m not at liberty or at a place where I feel it should be discussed.

VII. On July 10, Variety ran a little story about the creation of the monsters in Hellboy II. No mention of The Hobbit, but I think what GDT says here suggests that his approach to design is very compatible with that of the people at Weta Workshop.

A man with a broad range of tastes

Between the Oscars and critical acclaim for Pan’s Labyrinth, the release of Hellboy II, and the keen anticipation concerning The Hobbit, people seem suddenly interested in what makes GDT tick? What sorts of movies and other artworks does he love.

By the way, I’m not one of those people who make a distinction between art and works of pop culture. It’s all art to me, and GDT seems to feel the same way. In an audio interview with Jeffrey Wells, he mentions Mario Bava (Italian cult director of horror films) and Michelangelo Antonioni (Italian director of art-film classics) in the same breath.

The July 7/14 issue of Newsweek has a little piece where GDT lists his five “most important” movies. First is Luis Buñuel’s 1947 Los Olvidados, certainly one of the Spanish master’s best films, made during his long career in Mexico. GDT describes it as “a searing indictment of urban conditions-but also a dark fable.” He cites The Bride of Frankenstein, a film which coincidentally figures prominently in Gods and Monsters, where Ian McKellen plays its director, James Whale. (And while I know it’s irrelevant here, it cannot be said too often that Ian was robbed of a much-deserved Oscar for that role. Roberto Benigni, forsooth!) The list continues with Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 naturalistic study, Greed, and with Charles Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925). Fifth is Jean Renoir’s La chienne (“The Bitch,” 1931), the great French director’s first masterpiece; it ushered in a miraculous string of masterpieces during that decade, culminating in my own favorite Renoir film, La regle du jeu, in 1939.

Asked about “a film you revisited with disappointment,” GDT names Crime and Punishment. I’m not sure which version of Crime and Punishment he’s referring to here, but it might well be the 1951 film by the major Mexican director Fernando de Fuentes. Asked about “films parents should share with kids,” he mentions two that met with considerable critical acclaim but little box-office success: A Little Princess and The Iron Giant. A Little Princess was produced by one of my Frodo Franchise interviewees (and an old friend from grad school), Mark Johnson, who also has produced the Chronicles of Narnia series; The Iron Giant’s Brad Bird went on to further critical and far more monetary success with The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

The July 11 Entertainment Weekly inaugurated its new “Inside the Mind of …” series with a GDT profile, asking about his main influences. (Here’s a link, though today there was something wrong, and it led only to a blank page; maybe they’ll fix it.) For superhero comics, he grew up reading about “Swamp Thing.” He credits Jack Kirby’s comic-book monsters for influencing him on the Hellboy films: “‘Kirby’s monsters were incredibly powerful and incredibly silly—creatures with massive teeth wandering the streets popping cars in their mouths like popcorn,’ he says.” I guess that’s a compliment. Certainly one of the aspects of Hellboy II that critics have been praising is its humor. (As I mentioned, I haven’t seen it yet. Not that I don’t want to, but I like to watch most films in as empty a theater as possible.)

GDT shares with Peter Jackson a preference for physical special effects, and he calls animator Ray Harryhausen, creature-creator Stan Winston, and make-up expert Rick Baker “the three gods of my personal mythology.” Interestingly, he’s also fascinated by design in animation: “All movies should be designed like animation, where the style is the substance.” Inspirational examples he cites are Chuck Jones’s What’s Opera, Doc? (one of the greats) and Sleeping Beauty. On my other blog, I wrote an entry about why the consistently best films being made in modern Hollywood tend to be animated, partly because they have to be planned so meticulously.

Along with symbolist painting and movie soundtracks, GDT likes “vintage crime and pulp novels,” which he collects. Other movies he loves include The Road Warrior, Blade Runner, and Brazil, and from his youth, Creature from the Black Lagoon and the James Whale Frankenstein movies. His favorite author also happens to be mine, Charles Dickens.

So, that’s what I’ve gleaned from my reading. It’s going to be a long time until we see the final films, but what these interviews and stories reveal about GDT makes it seem that, once again, they will be well worth the wait.