Peter Jackson Says Hobbit Movie Still Alive

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Oscar-winning New Zealand movie-maker Peter Jackson says the film of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit will still be made despite the departure of Mexican director Guillermo del Toro.

Jackson, who directed the smash-hit trilogy The Lord of the Rings and was named executive producer with his wife Fran Walsh of The Hobbit prequel in December 2007, said November was the earliest that shooting could begin, but it depended on finding a new director.

"We don't intend to let this affect the progress," Jackson told Tuesday's Dominion Post in his hometown Wellington. "The key thing is that we don't intend to shut the project down."

Del Toro announced Monday that he was quitting as director, two years after he was named to the project, over frustration at repeated delays. He said he had commitments to make other films but would continue as a co-scriptwriter on The Hobbit with Jackson and Walsh.

Problems with The Hobbit have been compounded by the financial plight of MGM, which was put up for sale in November with debts of 3.7 billion US dollars. MGM was a joint backer of the film with Time Warner subsidiary New Line Cinema.

Jackson did not rule out directing The Hobbit himself if another director could not be found, the Dominion Post reported.

"If that's what I have to do to protect Warner Bros' investment, then obviously that's one angle which I'll explore," he told the paper.

Jackson said he had signed writer and director contracts with Hollywood studios for two other films and "the other studios may not let me out of the contracts."

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