Mexican director named for Hobbit movie
29 Apr 2008
Acclaimed Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro is moving to New Zealand’s capital city Wellington to take a journey back to Middle-earth, directing The Hobbit movie and its sequel for the next four years.
Ending months of speculation about del Toro's involvement, executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, and the films' backers, New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have broken their silence to confirm he would direct the US$150 million (NZ$190 million) movies back-to-back.
Del Toro, best known for Hellboy and the Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth, will move to New Zealand - probably early next year - to work closely with Jackson and his Wellington Wingnut and Weta production teams on the four-year project.
Positively Wellington Tourism chief executive Tim Cossar said the films were likely to bring positive spin-offs. "With the Lord of the Rings films, the whole production had a profound impact not only on Wellington tourism but New Zealand tourism in general. Wellington as the epicentre of production for those movies had a major benefit. This announcement can only be good news."
Jackson and Walsh have praised del Toro as an outstanding film-maker and a true original who has never lost his "child-like sense of wonder".
"He is a genuine storyteller who brings a tremendous amount of passion, energy and imagination to his work. We have long admired Guillermo's work and cannot think of a more inspired film-maker to take the journey back to Middle-earth."
Del Toro said it was a great honour to become a part of the film-making community Jackson and Walsh had helped create in New Zealand. "Contributing to the Lord of the Rings legacy is an absolute dream come true."
A spokeswoman for New Line Cinema said no start date had been set for pre-production work and it would probably be 2009 before del Toro arrived in New Zealand.
The first film will tell the story of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, and its sequel will cover the 60 years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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