The Hobbit Trilogy Discussion Thread

[kjacobs03]

WIZARD FIGHT!!!!!
j/k LOL

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Come on dude with the number of people with their ear to the ground about this movie, you know if there were any real news recently, it would've already been posted.

gotcha.

[Witch King of Angmar]

Originally Posted by kjacobs03

WIZARD FIGHT!!!!!
j/k LOL

Witch King > Gandalf > Radagast

[AintNoSin]

Originally Posted by kjacobs03

Me thinks it's about time for WB to sue MGM for the rights.

Oh, yeah. That would speed things up.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by AintNoSin

Oh, yeah. That would speed things up.

The way things are going, it might. Forcing or pressuring them to give up their share of the rights would get it made late rather than never. The MGM situation is at a complete impasse that needs to be broken. There is no apparent solution to the problem. The studio's debt exceeds it's value, but the creditors refuse to move off the demand of recouping all their costs, which simply will not ever happen, unless somebody is willing to basically pay double of what the studio is worth. The sides are not even close, the only thing MGM has been able to do to stave off complete annihilation, is win a series of delaying injunctions. WB should force them out of their half, and make the movie.

[Darkhawk9587]

[QUOTE=mjbethancourt;3531476]The way things are going, it might. Forcing or pressuring them to give up their share of the rights would get it made late rather than never. The MGM situation is at a complete impasse that needs to be broken. There is no apparent solution to the problem. The studio's debt exceeds it's value, but the creditors refuse to move off the demand of recouping all their costs, which simply will not ever happen, unless somebody is willing to basically pay double of what the studio is worth. The sides are not even close, the only thing MGM has been able to do to stave off complete annihilation, is win a series of delaying injunctions. WB should force them out of their half, and make the movie.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. People want to see this film be made, and MGM is not helping hte cause one bit.

[Josh]

Someone please tell me that del Toro didn't drop The Hobbit to make Haunted Mansion?

The quicker they figure out what MGM's future is, the quicker this film gets made. Watched Two Towers yesterday and Sir Ian can not be replaced. He owns the role.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Josh

Someone please tell me that del Toro didn't drop The Hobbit to make Haunted Mansion?

Okay. He didn't.

Actually, I think the problem was that Del Toro had several movies lined up contractually, and after MGM FUBAR'd the Hobbit, he was forced to move on.

[Neo_3]

He is also producing Pinocchio.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Josh

Someone please tell me that del Toro didn't drop The Hobbit to make Haunted Mansion?

The quicker they figure out what MGM's future is, the quicker this film gets made. Watched Two Towers yesterday and Sir Ian can not be replaced. He owns the role.

I believe he's just squeezing it in to the year or so that he opened up on his schedule by quitting 'The Hobbit'.

He has much bigger announced projects over the next decade that 'The Hobbit' was going to interfere with if it ran past mid-2012, which it certainly will at this point.

[LordCrumb]

Does anyone know who the production co-ordinator is for The Hobbit?

[Member-115369]

The frustrating thing with this hold up is you'd think MGM with their financial woes would either want to get this made ASAP or sell the rights as either should make them a LOT of money.

[Diesel]

Warner Brothers offered them $1 billion...but they turned it down.



They are something like $3-$4B in debt I believe.

[Monolithium]

MGM is all about crushing the fans dreams these days.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

The frustrating thing with this hold up is you'd think MGM with their financial woes would either want to get this made ASAP or sell the rights as either should make them a LOT of money.

The economic issues probably revolve around the profits. If MGM doesn't have any money to help in the cost of making, producing and marketing the movie, then WB, rightly so, probably feels MGM shouldn't get any profit. And MGM feels they should because of the ownership of the movie rights. The owners of MGM's debt should realize what a cash cow this will be and be willing to put up a substantial portion of the costs of making the movie. If they are 3B in debt, The Hobbit movie won't pay all of that debt.

[mjbethancourt]

I predict that this whole thing will end with MGM being dissolved, and all of its assets separately auctioned, and I predict that they continue to stall off that resolution for as long as possible, maybe more than another year, and everybody will lose... even more than they are losing already. MGM's debtholders lost touch with reality a long time ago, they're trying to get blood from a stone.

In response to a couple of the previous comments: MGM doesn't even function as a studio at this point. Their operational decisions have been taken over by the debtholders. It really is a hopeless situation.

[bytor_one]

Originally Posted by Grand Bob

One of the things that bothers me about this is that the making of "The Hobbit" should be a joy in all aspects of production. Compared to a lot of movies, the subject matter is light, non-dismal, and non-philosophical; the cast, crew, and production team should have a blast making it; and following on the heels of "Lord of the Rings", it is practically guaranteed to be a worry-free, box-office smash. It sounds as though the worst is being made of this situation.

Lol. It doesnt matter what the subject matter is, it's a huge and difficult project. Very hectic, constant problems. Happens with any huge budget high profile movie. I dont think anyone behind closed doors would tell you making a film like this is fun or easy. That's just not the reality of film making.

[Neo_3]

Originally Posted by radagast

The economic issues probably revolve around the profits. If MGM doesn't have any money to help in the cost of making, producing and marketing the movie, then WB, rightly so, probably feels MGM shouldn't get any profit. And MGM feels they should because of the ownership of the movie rights. The owners of MGM's debt should realize what a cash cow this will be and be willing to put up a substantial portion of the costs of making the movie. If they are 3B in debt, The Hobbit movie won't pay all of that debt.

I could see both movies making 1.5B WW and DVD/Blu-Ray sales.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Neo_3

I could see both movies making 1.5B WW and DVD/Blu-Ray sales.

They could gross 3 billion and still only net a few hundred million. It's not all straight profit, not even close.

[classicfilmcollector]

I can't obviously give a specific amount that's gone into pre-pro, but considering Hobbiton is nearly done and rights are trying to be bought and so on, I'd imagine quite a bit already. A rough guess - maybe $20 million.

But that's not even the bad thing. The bad thing is that if The Hobbit duo falls through, it goes to the grave with Halo as well. Peter Jackson will start getting a reputation of not being able to get films off the ground, and with 4 years so far into pre-pro, what a waste. I mean, if they said it was cancelled, could you imagine? What. A. Waste. I can't begin to describe. 4 years, 20 million, thousands of bits of conceptual and animatic design. HUGELY disappointing for everybody involved. 4 years down the drain. Blood, sweat and tears, for nothing.

It's also embarrassing for PJ, who ultimately should've cleared all of this up before announcing it way back in early 2007. It's now 2010 and the rights STILL haven't arrived. The studio is bankrupt, and, let's face it, chances are getting slimmer of the film being made.

If its canned, I will understand, but this is going down as one of the most horribly planned films in motion picture history. IN the space that THe Hobbit has taken to gain a director, most films have their SEQUEL out by now. So it's certainly not good!