In an interview with BBC Radio, Guillermo del Toro confirmed several casting questions for the two new movies of The Hobbit, and it’s good news. Ian McKellan will return as Gandalf, Andy Serkis as Gollum, and Hugh Weaving as Elrond.
It’s great to know these familiar characters will return to the screen, but the big question is still unanswered. Who will play Bilbo Baggins? Del Toro did say he has it narrowed down to one actor, but would not reveal who he has in mind – yet. It is expected that the announcement of the coveted role of Bilbo will occur within the next couple of weeks.
During the interview Del Toro talked about the direction of the storyline and why it was divided into two movies. For example: he intends to expand sub-plot material from the book – like Gandalf’s role will be expanded and we’ll see more of his quest that happens off stage in the book. They’ve been working on Smaug, the dragon, for 8 months and have only just “cracked the basic engineering.” It is expected that six or seven more months of work is in order since Del Toro has promised big things when it comes to Smaug.
As far as splitting The Hobbit into two movies, del Toro and Peter Jackson recently stated that the movies will not be just the journey of Bilbo and the dwarves and they plan to expand the story to include both Sauron’s story as well as Gandalf’s comings and goings.
Here is an excerpt from Empire’s interview with Jackson and del Toro:
Jackson: We just decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit and it allows us to make the Hobbit in a little more of the style, if you like, of the trilogy, too.Del Toro: To make a movie of the Hobbit that didn’t go over three hours
Jackson: You would be rushing along…
Del Toro: You would be losing iconic moments. The animated version avoids Beorn, who is a great character, and some people always feel that you should lose the Spiders (of Mirkwood), or this or that. We wanted to keep every iconic moment that was in the book and give it some weight.
But Jackson wants to remind everyone:
What I think everybody has to get right in their minds is that we’re creating a Middle-earth that’s pretty much the same as the trilogy’s Middle-earth. Hobbiton is going to look like the same place. Hobbits are going to look the same. But it’s another guy going in with his own filmmaking style. That’s why I think this could be a better idea for him to direct these films than me. Let’s all see what somebody else does with Middle-earth. Let’s go in there with another director and another set of lenses and another cameraman, and see what they do with it. I think that’s exciting. He’s not pretending to be me. People have got to get that into their heads.
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