While most of us are still coming to terms with the announcement that The Hobbit will be released as a trilogy, Peter Jackson is discussing how much of Guillermo del Toro, the film’s original director, remains in the mix.
Jackson took over the film back in 2010 when del Toro dropped out of after two years of pre-production. Now, the director has spoken out and has told fans how much of del Toro’s influence will be seen in the final product.
[Guillermo] had designed a lot of the movie . . . I looked at his designs when he took over and a lot of his designs are very Guillermo . . . it was very much stuff that you would recognize from Pan’s Labyrinth or Hellboy. It was his artistic vision and I couldn’t make that movie. I looked at his designs and I said the only person who can make a Guillermo Del Toro movie is Guillermo. It shouldn’t be me. I can’t put my head into somebody else’s idea — I have to generate it from the beginning. So really I redesigned the film pretty much. Some of Guillermo’s DNA is in there — there were some things he did that I thought were pretty cool and I’ve taken bits of pieces of his stuff — kind of altering it and changing it as I saw it. But the film was largely redesigned.
This seems like it was the right way to go. I can’t imagine Peter Jackson making Guillermo del Toro’s version of The Hobbit, especially since he obviously has an idea in his head of what the films should be like.
As much as I would have loved to see del Toro’s vision for The Hobbit, I’m ultimately satisfied with the stylistic choices Jackson’s made for the film. That being said, would it be too much to hope for that del Toro’s artwork be a special feature when the trilogy is released on Blu-Ray?
Part one, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will be released on December 14th of this year. Its successor, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, will release on December 13, 2013, while the aforementioned third part has yet to snag a release date.
Source: The Film Stage