Del Toro Leaves 'The Hobbit' As Helmer; Peter Jackson Won't Retake Directing Reins

Originally posted by deadline.com

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Guillermo del Toro announced today on the OneRing.net -- the official Middle Earth sounding board -- that he's stepped out of the directing assignment on the two film versions of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, though he will continue to collaborate as a writer. I would have bet that Peter Jackson would be the one to step back into the director's chair because there have been rumblings about this lately. But his manager, Ken Kamins, tells me this is absolutely not a possibility.

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Wow, I wasn't expecting that. I was actually sort of excited to see what he could do with this book. I loved Hellboy 1 and 2, I didn't see Pan's Labyrinth but heard it was really interesting. Lets just hope this doesn't hurt the films production. Jackson should take the helm again, but as stated above and more in that news... not happening.

If it doesn't delay the filming and they pick someone else as equally talented, then this isn't really bad news... just sad news.

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