The Hobbit Gets Direction

Guillermo del Toro is in talks to direct back-to-back installments of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

He’s best known for making movies including Blade II, Pans Labyrinth and Hellboy.

For Hollywood studio New Line, making Hobbit has become a priority in the wake of its billion-dollar success with the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings movies, which were co-written and directed by Peter Jackson.

Peter wanted to adapt Hobbit, but when he got into a dispute with the studio over profit participation, the project went into limbo; neither New Line nor MGM, both rights-holders to the film, wanted to risk alienating fans of the trilogy by making an adaptation that didn't have his involvement.

Principal photography for the films - which have a budget of $150 million each and will be shot simultaneously - is tentatively set for 2009.

The release of the first film is slated for 2010 and the second for 2011.