Guillermo del Toro: "We’ll be pushing the Goblin Kingdom"

I was thinking the other day that the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is probably my favorite trilogy ever. And that’s saying a lot, when you think about “Indiana Jones,” “Star Wars,” and all the rest. LOTR had everything in terms of storyline, casting, dialogue, music … everything!

So “The Hobbit” is one of my most anticipated movies in the coming years — well, actually TWO movies, since it’s being split into two parts, premiering December 2011 and December 2012. It’s got Guillermo del Toro writing and directing, and Peter Jackson writing and producing, so you’ve gotta think it’s going to be awesome. Also, Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Andy Serkis (Gollum) are rumored to be reprising their roles.

More after the jump…

BilboHobbit.com chatted with del Toro recently about both “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” and the two “Hobbit” films. Some highlights:

On a “Hellboy 3″ movie: “If its up to me – yes! But it’s a corporate decision, and regimes change very rapidly at these studios.”

On bringing the Tolkien world to life: “The challenge is to create and expand a massive universe and be as immersive as the Trilogy was. To approach Tolkien’s book with the right mixture of reverence, enthusiasm and invention.”

On cool creatures in “The Hobbit”: “We’ll be pushing the goblin kingdom, Smaug, the spiders of Mirkwood … we’ll be pushing them to the edge of technology where we’ll fuse animatronics and CGI into a seamless new art form in creating creatures.”

On when “The Hobbit” filming begins: “It will begin in 2010, and we will shoot for about 370 days or so.”

On his top choices to play Bilbo Baggins: “Hopefully, very soon we can reveal that.”

Image: “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” New Line Cinema, 2008