Hobbit director quits

Guillermo Del Toro. Photo / Supplied

Guillermo Del Toro has announced he is no longer directing the two movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, citing "ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming".

Del Toro will remain connected with the project as screenplay co-writer but said the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules had "overwhelmed the timeslot originally allocated for the project".

"After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien's Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures," he wrote in a statement posted on fansite theonering.net.

"I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I've been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed."

Executive producer Peter Jackson said the "protracted development time on these two films, due to reasons beyond anyone's control" had compromised Del Toro's commitment to other long term projects.

"The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn't feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years," Jackson said in a statement on The One Ring.

"Guillermo is co-writing the Hobbit screenplays with Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh and myself, and happily our writing partnership will continue for several more months, until the scripts are fine tuned and polished.

"New Line and Warner Bros will sit down with us this week, to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition, as we secure a new director for The Hobbit. We do not anticipate any delay or disruption to ongoing pre-production work."

Production of The Hobbit films has reportedly been held up due to studio MGM's ongoing financial troubles, however Jackson told website moviefone.com last month it was inaccurate to say the movies had been delayed, given MGM had yet to greenlight them.

"We're now in the process of budgeting the films, and then hopefully we'll get to a budget the studio [people] are happy with, and they'll greenlight the movies and we'll announce the shooting dates."

- NZ HERALD STAFF