Collider.com has posted a brief interview with Peter Jackson in which he touches briefly on topics relating to both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

First, on the start of principal photography for The Hobbit. Obviously no firm schedule exists for this. Early on, when New Line first announced the project, the date was March, 2010. Later that became April, though that was not an official announcement by any means. Recently Peter said July in an interview in Germany and caused huge speculation on fan sites as to a) what caused such a delay and b) what it meant for the release date of the first film.

Here’s what he now says:

We were due to deliver the scripts and be shooting sometime around April and now I think I said in an interview we were shooting in June.  And somehow people are now saying the film is delayed.  As far as I am aware, they are not delayed at all.  I am not even sure when we are going to start shooting…we are delivering the scripts just after Christmas they’ll be finished and we’ll be shooting as soon as we possibly can.  But you need a certain amount of time to finish the pre-production.

The very fact that Peter can’t remember which date he mentioned in the earlier interview pretty much confirms that there is no official start date.

I cannot overemphasize that much of what the studio and filmmakers have said so far about dates is tentative. Until the two scripts are finished, the budget planned, and the greenlight given, no really firm dates can be devised. In the meantime, all announced dates are presumably targets, and they will change as the decision-makers gain more information.

So whether the principal photography begins in April or July or whenever, there is no real delay. It’s a delay only in relation to estimates, not a firm schedule. These procedures are normal in Hollywood. There is no need to imagine a crisis based on the Tolkien Trust lawsuit, MGM’s financial crisis, or some sort of creative disagreement between the scriptwriters and the studio.

Second, on the release dates of the finished films, the interviewer asks, “So you believe in December 2011 the first part is going to be in theaters. Peter replies, “At this stage, that is certainly the plan.”

Again, that’s tentative. Studios frequently change the release dates of films, especially if the release date was estimated very early on, before the scripting/greenlighting process was even begun. A delay would be disappointing, but it wouldn’t be indicative of some behind-the-scenes calamity.

Third, on the Blue-ray releases, Peter points out that Warner Home Video is handling the decisions about release dates. For the theatrical version, he says, “I believe it is scheduled for sometime next year. They keep changing the date … I don’t know why.” He has already been given a chance to approve the Blu-ray transfer, and “it looks fantastic.”

On whether there will then be a separate extended-version Blu-ray set, Peter replies, “I think so. Again I’m not 100% certain actually.”

So what this boils down to is that the situation is still very much in flux, and everything we think we know is only estimates and tentative plans. The bit of solid news here is that Peter has approved the Blu-ray theatrical version, which will presumably come out next year. There’s no real reason for Warner to delay it or fret about the optimum date for a release. Blu-ray still constitutes a tiny fraction of the home-video market.

[Thanks to David Ivory for alerting me to the Collider interview.]