It's little secret that studio MGM has been having financial difficulties of late, and part of its current refinancing plans have surrounded putting the funding in place for its part of the budget for The Hobbit. Still, it seemed that it was full steam ahead, with the year-long shoot set to start at the beginning of 2010.

Only it isn't any more. Talking to MovieReporter.net. Peter Jackson has been quoted with a fresh update. The original story was in German, and it's the fine folks at theonering.net who have translated it into English. And there are two interesting pieces of news contained within it.

Firstly, Jackson noted that they were finishing off the script for the second of the two movies (it had earlier been confirmed that script one was pretty much done and dusted), and that it should be complete by the end of this year or beginning of next. He is quoted as saying, "When the scripts are completed, we can begin with the exact calculation of the necessary budget. We hope to start filming in the middle of next year."

That's unlikely to affect the release date for The Hobbit Part I, which is due out at the end of 2011. But the second piece of news might. For Jackson dropped in the little detail that "We've received no green light from the studio yet."

Now, we're guessing that this is tied in to MGM's financing issues, which we expect to be resolved in the weeks ahead. And we're guessing, given the script and pre-production work that's been done that this is a mere formality. But it does still sow a small seed of doubt at the back of your mind.

However, we still think it's a bang-on certainty that we'll be seeing the first Hobbit film in 2011 and the second one the year after. It's just the path to bringing them to the screen has been a little bumpier than was, presumably, originally planned.

TheOneRing
MovieReporter