Hobbit Executive Producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh Tap Pan’s Labyrinth Director To Helm Latest Installments of The Lord of the Rings Saga

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 24 , 2008) – Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy,” “Blade 2”) will direct “The Hobbit” and its sequel, it was jointly announced today by “The Hobbit” Executive Producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, New Line Cinema’s President and COO Toby Emmerich, and Mary Parent, Chairperson, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM).

The Hobbit Movie

“Guillermo is a filmmaker of outstanding ability; he is a genuine storyteller who brings a tremendous amount of passion, energy and imagination to his work. A true original, Guillermo is a cinematic magician who has never lost his child-like sense of wonder. He understands that the fantastic must be grounded in the real and that all stories are only ever a reflection of ourselves,” say Jackson and Walsh. “We have long admired Guillermo’s work and cannot think of a more inspired filmmaker to take the journey back to Middle-earth. We are delighted ‘The Hobbit’ is in such trustworthy hands.”

Del Toro says, “This is a great honor, and I am indeed blessed to become a part of the filmmaking community that Peter, Fran and their extraordinary team of collaborators have created in New Zealand. I want to thank them, Bob Shaye, Michael Lynne, Toby Emmerich and Mark Ordesky for entrusting me with such an incredible project. Contributing to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ legacy is an absolute dream come true.”

Comments Emmerich, “Guillermo has a proven ability to bring fantasy worlds to life in a compelling and emotional way. He is the ideal filmmaker to work with Peter and Fran to bring Tolkien’s beloved Middle-earth back to the screen.”
Parent adds: “As the international distributors for ‘The Hobbit’ films, we couldn’t agree more with Peter, Fran and our partners at New Line, Guillermo is the perfect choice to direct. Audiences across the globe enjoy his unique cinematic viewpoint, imaginative direction and provocative storytelling talents. His vision, in collaboration with Peter and Fran, will ensure ‘The Hobbit’ as a very special film experience for audiences worldwide.”

Del Toro will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and WETA production teams. He will helm the two films back to back – telling the story of “The Hobbit,” and its sequel, which will deal with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

New Line is overseeing development and will manage the production. “The Hobbit” and its sequel are being co-produced and co-financed by New Line Cinema and MGM, with Warner Brothers distributing domestically and MGM distributing internationally. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh are executive producing the films.

The Oscar®-winning, critically acclaimed “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide at the box office. In 2003, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” swept the Academy Awards®, winning all of the 11 categories in which it was nominated, including Best Picture – the first ever Best Picture win for a fantasy film. The trilogy’s production was also unprecedented at the time.

For more information about “The Hobbit” films, please visit www.TheHobbitBlog.com.

Del Toro most recently helmed the critically acclaimed “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which was released through New Line’s Picturehouse label and became the highest grossing Spanish language film in US box office history, and among the top five grossing foreign language films of all time. It won three Academy Awards® (Art Direction, Cinematography, and Makeup) and earned six nominations, including a writing nomination for del Toro for the film’s original screenplay. Del Toro also executive produced another Picturehouse release, the Spanish supernatural thriller “The Orphanage,” which, having scored critical success and broken box office records in Spain, has been critically acclaimed and is currently playing in theaters nationwide. Del Toro also previously co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Spanish fantasy thriller “The Devil’s Backbone,” and first worked with New Line in 2002 when he directed “Blade II.” His current feature, which he directs and has adapted from the graphic novel series, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” is scheduled for a July 11 release.

Will Ferrell (Semi-Pro) and John C. Reilly (Walk Hard) are comedy gold together. If you’ve seen Talladega Nights:The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then you should probably quit reading them, go see it, then continue reading this review for their newest movie Step-Brothers. This movie was much funnier than I expected, and I really enjoyed it.

Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (Reilly) are two 40 year old men still living with their parents. When their parents meet at a conference the two fall in love and decide to get married, making their sons step-brothers. Although they have similar lifestyle and are forced to share a room, the boys hate each other. When they begin working together against Brennan’s younger, more successful brother they finally realize they have much in common and quickly become best friends. As their friendship progresses, their parents marriage grows apart leading to the ultimate decision of divorce. But what will happen to Brennan and Dale? Well, they must go out into the big world on their own and see if they can finally grow up and become men.

Whether these two are best friends or enemies they are hilarious to watch. Some people may think Ferrell is just up to his old schtick, which I can see what they mean, but I love it. He was in his element with this movie, and it was much better than some of his other roles as of late. It’s hard to not watch Reilly in a movie and not think afterwards that he has another great performance in his pocket – even if the movie surrounding him is terrible, luckily that’s not the case in this instance.

Not only are Ferrell and Reilly reteamed for Step-Brothers, but so are Ferrell and director/writer Adam McKay (Anchorman). They’re reteamed before (on FunnyorDie.com – you may have heard of the Pearl skits, if not go watch them now!) but not on the big screen. McKay has a great way of shooting comedic scenes and shows them with wonderful timing.

Step-Brothers is a great way to pass the night. It’s a little more graphic for a comedy and is rated R for a reason, but that didn’t bother me. I’d give the movie a B+ and can’t wait to buy it on DVD.

Horton (Jim Carey) is an elephant with a enormous imagination who normally spends his days teaching the young animals of the jungle. However, one day he overhears a voice coming from a speck of dust floating through the air. He realizes that there must be people living on the speck and discovers the voice is the Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell). Unfortunately nobody else in the jungle can hear the voice as they don’t have Horton’s huge ears and he soon finds he has to do everything he can to stop Whoville from being destroyed.

Horton Hears a Who! is a children’s story by Dr Suess which I have to admit to having never read. These books completely past me by as a child and I suspect I was subjected to less imaginative fodder instead. Which is a shame as I’m as much of a fan of rhyming verse as the next person. Still, I did recently get dragged along to do some shopping for a baby shower and had a chance to flick through the pages of Horton hears a Who!. It certainly seemed to me that the film stays pretty faithful to the story.

I think what I found most refreshing about this movie is that it took me a while to figure out which characters Jim Carey and Steve Carell were playing. It seriously could have been the other way around and I really like that. It felt like they were actually making an effort to play the characters as opposed to just being a famous voice in an animated cartoon. I find with some of the other animated stories, with a whole host of famous voices, it tends to distract a little bit from the actual story. Here I think the story was first and foremost in the minds of everyone involved.

I suppose it’s easy to be extremely casual about the animation because we’ve seen this kind of quality before but I’m always blown away by the amount of effort it must take. As you’d expect it’s all flawlessly done and is a visually stunning piece of animation. Certainly the feel of the characters seemed to fit perfectly with how they were portrayed in the book. That could have been a big pitfall for any die hard Dr Suess fans out there but I’d be surprised if they didn’t like this movie.

I liked the story. I think it was genuinely funny as well imaginative. Perfect for kids and there’s probably enough there to keep adults entertained as well. It also didn’t try to be a super cool movie with popular references thrown in. The original Dr Suess story was the focus and it served the film superbly well.

There’s definitely a lot to enjoy. A simple story that’s perfect for a family movie session. I can’t think of a more imaginative way to introduce the idea of parallel universes into the mind’s of kids!