On location in New Zealand, director Guillermo del Toro offered some early hints about what audiences can expect from his cinematic interpretation of The Hobbit.
First off, he explains where the project currently stands:
Well we start next year. We are in pre-production. We are writing, designing, designing characters, monsters. Designing all the environments. Developing the technology to shoot it. And it will start in March 2010 and we will shoot for about 370 days or so. And at the end of that we will post-produce for a few months. And then first movie comes out 2011. Second movie comes out 2012.
He then goes on to tease the prospect of landscapes beyond anything seen in Lord of the Rings:
The landscapes in some cases, in some instances that were not established in the trilogy, we are going for a slightly different feel in some of the landscapes. So we are going to evolve little by little. At the end of the first movie, you will see landscapes that you haven't seen in the trilogy. And in the second movie we go to, hopefully, a place that is very very different.
Adding to the already huge expectations, comic artist Mike Mignola offered his impressions on the status of the project from a week in New Zealand working on some concept drawings for the movie:
... it looks like a 16-hour, insane movie, there's so much in it. It's too early for me to tell how much stuff is going to get paired down. I don't really feel comfortable saying too much, except that it looks amazing. And it's very much a del Toro stamp on that world.
Sounds like things are off to a really good start.