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45 Comments
- Rapter09, on 11/06/2009, -0/+19This interview - for once for a movie based on something - just puts me at peace in regards to how the movie will turn out.
What a great pairing. - Syric, on 11/07/2009, -1/+18Wait. You have a problem with Ents? Ents are the *****.
- nitroskanker, on 11/07/2009, -0/+16This is one article that was worth 10 clicks. I'm inspired to read these books again!
- eqisow, on 11/07/2009, -0/+11No, if Gollum ends up with eyes on his hands there will be blood.
- fms45, on 11/06/2009, -0/+11who will be Smaug's voice?
- MuffinPatrol, on 11/07/2009, -1/+11Gilbert Gottfried
- Chebsi, on 11/07/2009, -0/+9Of courshe.
- Auto, on 11/07/2009, -0/+7Bitch, bitch, bitch. It was worth it.
- eqisow, on 11/07/2009, -0/+6Sean Connery, of course.
- airwalke, on 11/07/2009, -0/+6I can't wait for the Hobbit. I know Tolkein purists hated the Lord of the Rings films, but to everyone else who either never read the books or appreciated the films in spite of not filming every single scene from the books, they were seminal achievements that came about at just the right time. I don't think there was a single dry eye coming out of the theater after Return of the King... when a freaking *fantasy* film affects everyone that emotionally, you know it was done right.
- Auto, on 11/07/2009, -0/+6I'm not getting this Jack Black reference.
- elliotys, on 11/07/2009, -3/+810+ pages. wtf.
- Hecubus452, on 11/07/2009, -0/+5Bilbo should just draw a door on his wall and walk through it right to Smaug's lair.
Movie over. - ezmac, on 11/07/2009, -0/+5id love to see some concept art of characters we havent seen on the silver screen yet, particularly smaug and beorn
- Hecubus452, on 11/07/2009, -1/+5This is exactly the situation in which the Tolkein fans need to either shut up and/or be ignored; let the man make the movie, he's smart, he'll do a good job, and if the movie isn't a perfect recreation of the book, who cares, the book's still there.
- freakFlag, on 11/07/2009, -0/+4yeah no *****, I get pissed if there's more than two. At the end of the day its only a webpage, don't keep formatted text within the constraints of your design because there's no point, just extend the text down the site, hell it would give you more vertical advertising space.
- SDL486, on 11/07/2009, -0/+4The only director other than Peter Jackson who I am comfortable with doing this movie.
- Coffeedemon, on 11/07/2009, -0/+4Imagine if someone actually made you read a book like the one the movie is based on. I think it may have more than 200 pages! ...the horror. Picking up each one of those pages with your fat little fingers... having to process lines of text in your head to formulate a picture of a scene. Whew. Now that is hard work!
- Stormwern, on 11/07/2009, -0/+4Christian Bale doing the batman voice probably
- Nick519, on 11/07/2009, -0/+3i don't think all tolkien purists hated LOTR. i've been in love with this series of books for over 30 years, and i was beyond happy with the movies. i do not agree with everything jackson changed from the books from a story standpoint, but i understand them from a cinematic one. the movies work very well on their own. the level of detail and care that they put to the trilogy was absolutely fantastic. for a long time, i thought i would never see the books turned into movies that i would be happy with... so many had tried and failed... but then jackson came along, and suddenly i had a trilogy of movies that at the very least rivaled my love of the original star wars trilogy, if not surpassed it.
- Stormwern, on 11/07/2009, -0/+3Agree, epic win. What few fears I had about the project are gone, can't wait to see the films.
- airwalke, on 11/07/2009, -0/+3King Kong.
- MarcAnon, on 11/07/2009, -1/+3Apparently he had a bit of an awakening after he sat on a toilet and broke it - he then realized that he was tubtastic and reformed the old fashioned way with diet and exercise.
Wait, that was Kevin Smith. No clue, probably coke. - eawgoalie, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2The only major problem I had was the fact that there were elves at Helm's Deep in the movies.
- gutistg, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2It was a good interview. I didn't mind the clicks.
- Caergrim, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2The Fellowship of the Ring is a superb movie. It eclipses the others in the trilogy by far.
- GraphiteBlimp, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2Honestly, you couldn't just move your wrist a few centimeters to change the page? I understand if you have a slow internet connection, but if not- you're one lazy sumbitch.
- airwalke, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2According to Jackson, MarcAnon is close. He just changed his diet apparently.
- Hiwnes, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2The movie doesn't need to be a perfect match line for line from the book but it does need to contain the essence of The Hobbit. Fellowship of the Ring captured the essence of The Lord of the Rings reasonably well but the others were each progressively worse than the first.
So far I'm feeling pretty good about the movie. It sounds like Del Toro gets it. His line about being a bit less true to the book than the Ring series is a bit concerning but all of the specifics he mentioned seemed to point the right way so I'll withhold judgement until I see the movie. - LarkStew, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2In the book I imagined them as these strong, bulky, ancient creatures. But in the film I have to admit they did come across as a bit weedy.
- LarkStew, on 11/07/2009, -0/+2JUST SO LONG AS HE CAN SHOUT EVERY LINE
- lurrch1, on 11/07/2009, -1/+2Did Peter Jackson pick up a huge coke habit after the LOTR Trilogy was a success? Seriously, how did he lose all the weight?
- Nekateman, on 11/07/2009, -1/+2you didn't...
- Syric, on 11/07/2009, -2/+3You are one lazy *****.
- Ryuuken117, on 11/07/2009, -0/+1BRIAN BLESSED
- circadiem, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Yeah I was referring to Kong. But I remember that MTV spoof that was hilarious!
- LarkStew, on 11/07/2009, -0/+1Pee Wee Herman
- brandonb90, on 11/07/2009, -0/+1MTV Movie Awards spoof. Youtube it.
- circadiem, on 11/07/2009, -2/+2Seth Mcfarlin
- circadiem, on 11/07/2009, -3/+2As long as there is no Jack Black or slow ass walking trees, this movie promises to be a great film.
- UmIsThisThingOn, on 11/07/2009, -5/+2Jesus that was brutal...
- asgardshill, on 11/07/2009, -6/+1Suck my *****, you felching buttwipe.
- UmIsThisThingOn, on 11/07/2009, -12/+6Eighteen months ago, Guillermo del Toro had a 10-year-plan. His life was mapped out, and it had nothing to do with JRR Tolkien’s lovingly rendered cartography of Middle-earth.
“I was calmly laying out the next decade of my life when The Hobbit appeared,” he laughs. “I was preparing all these things and all of a sudden The Hobbit shows up and takes over my life.”
Make no mistake: The Hobbit is his precious. Del Toro knows more than anyone that this diptych could – should – define his career.
And so the director has been busy building a world that not only honours JRR Tolkien’s book and Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy but will emerge assuredly, triumphantly, his own.
Our very own cuddly character, Jamie Graham, snuggled up to Del Toro at his Wellington base of operations, and talked exclusively about the biggest films of next decade.
The Hobbit has taken much longer to design than your other movies…
How did it work with the writing of the script? Presumably you’ve had as much input as Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens?
Many, many months ago we sat down to discuss the structure with 3in by 5in cards and we laid out the two movies.
We were meeting on a daily basis at 9am and we would go at it for hours, into the afternoon. Then in the afternoon I would go to check on design.
Then at one point we split into two teams: I did one pass at things and they did a pass at things; it’s pretty much the way I’m used to co-writing.
But I must say what was great and what made a big difference was the amount of great ideas that I felt were generated in a day – it was staggering.
We could have written three or four versions of The Hobbit [laughs].
You mentioned the structure. Will the book make up the first movie, with the second movie plucked from the appendices and maybe even your imagination? Or will parts of the book be saved for the second movie?
We are respecting the structure established by Professor Tolkien because the order of the adventures in The Hobbit is well known to generations and generations of kids. You don’t want to be moving stuff like that.
But we will be integrating Gandalf’s comings and goings because he does disappear in the book quite often.
So, as opposed to the book, we see where he goes and what happens to him
You and Peter are both visionary filmmakers who will fight for those visions. What happens when you clash?
So far we haven’t come to such a crossroads. We argue and we win at different stages. But I think Peter has been, so far, the perfect producer.
Two filmmakers have produced me in my life, both named Peter. One was Pedro Almodóvar and one is Peter Jackson.
Both times my experience has been that they are perfect producers because they understand the producer is not a producer/director.
A producer is a producer. If there’s an emergency, if everything goes wrong, then the producer can – and should – have a strong opinion.
But while everything is going well, on time, on budget and is creatively solid, there’s no need for that.
Presumably working with Peter is not that much different to working with Mike Mignola on the Hellboy movies?
You nailed it. I’d say Mike is as opinionated as if he was another director because essentially he directs on the page. And Mignola, like Pedro and Peter, knows the process – they all know that at some point you’re going to be alone with the beast [laughs].
You’re going to be the guy and you can only trust your own instincts.
You’re not going to be making a phone call from a remote location to ask a question; you’re going to have to make a decision yourself.
So how arduous has it been commuting between LA and Wellington? You’re now in New Zealand full-time, yes?
Yes. I go to LA very seldom now. It is, however, an incredibly easy commute for me. I’m used to it. I’m used to London-LA and in the same way I’m used to Wellington-LA. I blob out on the plane [laughs] and I have 13 hours all to myself, so it’s a privilege.
I write, or prepare emails, or read, so it’s a really great working day.
And the great advantage between LA and Wellington is that you are essentially in your time zone. You lose a day but you go to sleep in your night in LA and you wake up the next morning in Wellington.
Do you find time to sneak in the odd movie on the plane?
I do! But I try to watch television mostly because it doesn’t need you to have a big screen!
You love creating your creatures and obviously The Hobbit offers some great opportunities. There’s the dragon Smaug, the spiders of Mirkwood, the Wargs, Beorn the bear-man…
The way I phrased it to Weta, I said we would keep the DNA in the same gene pool as the Rings trilogy, but that we would generate a different type of character. For example, in the trilogy most of the creatures are brutish or inarticulate.
In The Hobbit, the creatures speak: Smaug has beautiful lines of dialogue; the Great Goblin has beautiful lines of dialogue; many creatures do. So we had to design them with a different approach because you are not just designing things that are scary.
I also wanted some of the monsters in The Hobbit to be majestic.
I wanted the Wargs to have a certain beauty so that you don't have a massively clear definition: what is beautiful is good and what is ugly is not. Some of the monsters are absolutely gorgeous.
Smaug won’t be like the dragons in Reign Of Fire, say. Was it a big challenge to communicate his character?
I think one of the designs I’m the proudest of is Smaug. Obviously he took the longest.
It’s actually still active: we’re finishing his colour palette and a little bit of the texture. But the bulk of the design took about a year, solid. It’s because of the unique features of the dragon.
Early in production I came up with a very strong idea that would separate Smaug from every other dragon ever made. The problem was implementing that idea. But I think we’ve nailed it.
What was the idea?
I cannot tell you what it was because it would be a massive spoiler! But I’m 100 per cent happy with Smaug. If there is such as thing as 110 per cent, then I’m there!
What about the spiders? How faithful are they to Shelob from Return Of The King?
Well, they are the progeny of Shelob, but Shelob was quite a promiscuous girl [laughs]. She mated with many partners. And insects and spiders are incredibly adaptable creatures. There will be spiders… [Laughs]
That sounds like a Paul Thomas Anderson sequel: There Will Be Spiders! But they are visually quite striking and in a different way to Shelob.
I wish I could tell you more but I would be spoiling it again. They are very different. They are more creatures of the shadow, more creatures of the deep forest. They are not earth nesting. They are nesting in the canopies so physically they have adapted to that environment.
Will the sequences involving Smaug and the spiders be genuinely scary?
I think so. I hope so. At least that’s the way we’re approaching it. Every good children’s movie, be it early Miyazaki or Disney, always has a thrilling scene or two. When I read The Hobbit as a kid… Well, you have the moments like when Beorn has the heads of goblins on spikes outside his house [laughs].
Tolkien made no bones about that. There is no way to have a dragon attack a town that’s not scary. It’s the same for the spiders: there is no way of making giant spiders cocooning people so it would be gentle!
Have you been studying real spiders? There are some big ones in New Zealand!
We have been. We have a couple of the guys in the design team who are obsessed with spiders.
They actually do their own little documentaries and features and they go out and capture spiders and they shoot their mouthparts and this and that with macro-lenses.
The main problem with the spider designs is how do you translate the weight into a design so nimble or so long-legged, because a spider has long legs. With Shelob, she was quite low to the ground so she moved like a tank. Our spiders have to feel massive but be very nimble.
Are you OK with the real spiders?
No. I adore insects, and I’m completely fascinated by spiders… But I am completely and absolutely horrified by them, too [laughs].
It’s something that Peter and I share!
How about the scale of The Hobbit? You’ve done big action sequences in Mimic, the Hellboy movies and Blade II, but you’ve never tackled anything like the climactic Battle of Five Armies…
No – and I think that I’m really quite eager to go and do that. But at the same time there were so many battles in the trilogy. So one of the first things is how do we make the battles or the action in The Hobbit feel different from that?
Because it was fresh when the trilogy came out, to see those enormous valleys or fortresses being invaded by warriors.
But then after the trilogy you had Troy, Narnia, everything. It has become quite common seeing two massive CG armies attacking each other.
So we came up with a good solution, I think. It will make the battles stand out.
Is it going to be more intimate?
I wish I could spoil it! All I can say is that we have an incredibly good team of people who know we are not making another Rings. We are not trying to make a quadrilogy, or a pentilogy. We’re tying to make two films that flow with those but that stand on their own completely.
We want to avoid stuff that is not part of the DNA, that is not part of the lexicon, but we also don’t want people to feel “We’ve seen this”.
Except where that familiarity is comforting, like Hobbiton or Rivendell – then you want to feel like you’re coming back home to a movie that you love and cherish.
Will you be using the same palette as the trilogy, dark and fertile?
I think The Hobbit is a bit more colourful. And a bit more operatic. And whimsical. One of the things the book marks very strongly is the seasons, so we’re using that as the basis of our thought.
Presumably it will also be a bit more magical? Have a stronger fairytale vibe?
It is in many ways just what you enjoy in the book. You enjoy an almost chamber piece, like when the stone trolls talk about cooking the dwarves.
It’s such a small piece but at the same time it’s magical and it’s almost a comedy, that you have these enormous creatures talking about cooking these dwarves!
It wouldn’t be a Guillermo del Toro movie unless it possessed a poetic quality, surely?
There is a lot of magic in the film. Peter has the eye of a strong historian, in the sense that the trilogy is incredibly accurate to a world that was created. He’s like an archaeologist who’s digging something that existed. I think that The Hobbit has a little bit more poetic licence.
It has… How can I say it? It has a little bit more flamboyance.
The Hobbit begins shooting in late spring 2010 and will open in 2011. - elfprince13, on 11/07/2009, -11/+4I'm someone distressed actually, by the last page, where he makes the claim that the trilogy was incredibly faithful to the books, but that he's taking a little more poetic license. If the LOTR movies are showing faithfulness to the books I'm not at all looking forward to seeing how he mangles The Hobbit.
- asgardshill, on 11/07/2009, -15/+2Sorry, but this article just isn't worth the 10 clicks it would take for me to wade through all of it. Buried.
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