Now that the contracts are signed and it’s all official that Guillermo Del Toro is going to be directing The Hobbit and the as-yet-unnamed (as far as I know) bridge film that spans the 60 years until Fellowship of the Ring, actors must be secured. GDT has stopped by TheOneRing.net to let the fans know just where things stand on that matter.

“I had the most charming meeting with Sir Ian, and all bureaucracy
pending, he’s on board, as is Andy Serkis,”
he said. “We will continue giving you
progress reports as the occur. It is our intention that we will not
lose any of the key elements.”

Del Toro has a lot more to say – for instance, he would take issue with me calling The Hobbit sequel a bridge film: “When we did this we got really excited because this second film is not
a ‘tag on’, it’s not ‘filler’, it’s an integral part of telling the
story of those 50 years of history lost in the narrative. There will be
certain things that we will see from the first movie but from a
different point of view, but it will feel like a volume, in the 5
volumes of the entire story. It will not feel like a bridge, I’ve been
hearing it called ‘a bridge film’, it’s not, it’s an integral chapter
of the story, and I think we’re all on the same page.”


He also talks about what might be the main difference between his film and Peter Jackson’s original – he wants to use more animatronics that will be aided by CGI as opposed to creating a bunch of CGI creatures.

Check out the entire interview here; this is going to be a long journey for everybody and with GDT leading it we’ll be sure to be getting the inside view the whole way through.