The Hobbit set for one year delay?

It's been a bit of a bumpy couple of months trying to track the release schedule of MGM and Warner Bros' movies of The Hobbit. Producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro have been hard at work on the two films being made of The Hobbit, but just the other month, it was revealed that the start of the shoot was being pushed back to the summer of this year. Previously, the films were to begin production earlier in 2010, ahead of the proposed Christmas 2011 release date for The Hobbit Part I. Yet, while the shoot itself is set to last just over a year, it still seemed that the original planned release date might hold.

Yet, in the light of a new interview by Variety with Alan Horn of New Line/Warner Bros, it seems that we may still be nearly two years away from seeing a cinematic return to Middle Earth. Horn reveals that the likely scenario would see release at the back end of 2012 for The Hobbit Part I, with presumably Christmas 2013 being the target for The Hobbit Part II.

The uncertainty over the ownership of MGM - which is set to be resolved over the coming months - clearly doesn't help matters. But we should still get more Hobbit news in the next couple of months, as the movies get set to go before the cameras.