(Via The Other McCain) This has been one of the more contentious film projects of recent memory – $400 million dollar projects tend to be – but it looks like that they’re running out of excuses to not put The Hobbit up on the big screen:
“The Hobbit” is now greenlit and will begin principal photography in February 2011, MGM, Warner Brothers, and New Line, have confirmed.
As TheWrap reported exclusively earlier Friday (below), Peter Jackson will direct the two-part film.
But don’t worry! The unions are whining. So there’s still a chance that the golden goose will still get killed.
Moe Lane
PS: As I understand it, The Lord of the Rings trilogy generated 6 billion in revenue. That’s why this project has been so contentious: because the odds that The Hobbit series won’t make its money back on the first movie alone are, to rip off David Brin, somewhere between ‘fat’ and ‘slim.’
I was always amazed that they were going to go with anyone but Jackson. Once the LOTR trilogy saw it’s big success and Jackson drew a kind of cult following from that group, it seemed to me that it was a no brainer to have him as the director of the Hobbit.
From the studio’s point of view, the problem was that Jackson damned well knew it, too. When RotK swept Oscar Night, you could hear the ka-ching! of Jackson’s percentage of the gross go up with every statuette.