Monday, June 29

• The Hobbit to Unveil New Landscapes

  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.

  
  

  Posted 06/29/2009 by Bill

  Related: Guillermo del Toro | Mike Mignola | The Hobbit

Wednesday, November 12

• Mignola Plans 'Different Direction' for Vampire Flick Baltimore

  Vampires, it seems, are the new gangsters. Books, movies, and TV shows centered around the nocturnal bloodsuckers are practically ubiquitous these days, with one project in particular attracting almost frightening levels of interest.

  Busily readying a vampire-themed project of his own is Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. While out promoting the Blu-ray release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army last night, Mignola gave us an update on the movie adaptation of his vampire-themed graphic novel Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, which David Goyer (The Unborn) is slated to direct:

  "We're taking it in a different direction," Mignola, who co-wrote the comic along with Christopher Golden, told us. "The book is very complex and involved and kind of a story-within-a-story thing, and I think we've come up with a way to streamline it so that it's filmable.... Right now the ball is in our court to sit down and write the new version of the screenplay."

  Since Baltimore's script hasn't been finalized, a shooting date is still a long ways off. "At this point it's just (about) keeping the studio interested in it, because it's gone on for a while and we've gone in a couple of different directions with the screenplay," said Mignola. "I've never been involved in anything like this. With Hellboy, it was entirely (director Guillermo) del Toro doing these meetings and stuff.... I've never been in this place, meeting with studios and meeting with directors and that kind of stuff, so I have no idea how the hell this kind of thing works."

  If Mignola and company do succeed in getting the project off the ground, a suggested first order of business might be to shorten the title, which in its current state is only slightly less cumbersome than The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

  
  

  Posted 11/12/2008 by reelz

  Related: Mike Mignola | David Goyer