Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro Hold a 'Hobbit' Online Chat
A massive transcript for you to sink your teeth into
WETA Host: My question is, when Del Toro has acknowledged his disdain for Hobbits and "sword and sandals" fantasy, how can he do justice to the movie? Why can't Peter direct it himself after The Lovely Bones? He can direct these 2 movies and then direct the 3rd Tintin movie.
Guillermo del Toro: Okay- If by "Sword and Sandal" you mean "Sword and Sorcery" I stand by the general lines of my statement in 2006. But allow me to reproduce the following paragraph from ONERING.net and expand it-
Since the age of 4 I became an avid reader and collector of books; manuscripts, pamphlets, first editions, small press or worn-down paperbacks… they all find a home at my library which has grown so cumbersome and obtrusive that I had to move to a separate home from the family one…
For many decades my main area of interest has been horror fiction: Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, MR James, LeFanu, etc and classic Fairy tales and literature about the engines of Myth: unabridged Grimm, Andersen, Wilde, Bettelheim, Tatar, etc
Now and then I indulge in Science Fiction (not hardware oriented but more humanistic things) and thus I count Bradbury, Ellison, Sturgeon and Matheson amongst my favorites.
My area of interest gets much narrower when we deal with another genre… the genre that is shelved under Fantasy.
As a youngster I read Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, Lloyd Alexander, Fritz Leiber, Marcel Schwob, RE Howard and a few others.
Nevertheless I was never propelled into an aleatory addiction to sub-genres like Sword & Sorcery or indiscriminate fantasies about magical this or that- Like any other genre or subgenre there's a great abundance that makes it hard to discern when a new "trilogy" or "chronicle" comes from as genuine a place as Tolkien's or derives from genuine fervor -religious or otherwise- like C.S. Lewis' did. But here I am now: reading like a madman to catch up with a whole new land, a continent of sorts- a Cosmology created by brilliant philologist turned Shaman.
As if he grasped an existing universe outside our Platonic cave, Tolkien channels an entire world, weaving expertly from myth and lore. The outstanding virtue is that all this scholarly erudition doesn't reduce his tales to mere Taxidermy. He achieves an Alchemy all of his own: he writes new life in the freshly sculpted clay of his creatures.
I have, through the years become familiar with the very roots of Tolkien's myths and the roots of Fafhrd or Elric or Hyperborea and many a time I have relished the intricate ways in which demonic wolves, shape-shifter and spindly-limbed pale warriors can be woven into those many tales that become, at the end, the single tale, the single saga- that of what is immortal in us all.
In creating Pan's Labyrinth I drank deep of the most rigid form of Fairy Lore and tried to contextualize the main recurrent motifs in an instinctive rhyme between the world of fantasy and the delusions of War and Politics (the grown man's way of playing make-believe) and in re-reading The Hobbit just recently I was quite moved by discovering, through Bilbo's eyes the illusory nature of possession, the sins of hoarding and the banality of war- whether in the Western Front or at a Valley in Middle Earth. Lonely is the mountain indeed.
When that statement was made- at different times during Pan's Labyrinth's promotion, many a time I made the distinctive call to say that although I had not read Tolkien outside The Hobbit I had been fascinated by the Trilogy films. A statement that I already had the chance to make in 2005 when PJ, Fran and I met about HALO.
So, no, generally I am NOT a "Sword and Sorcery" guy or a "Fantasy" guy- By the same token, I'm not a sci-fi guy but I would make a film based on Ellison in a second- or on Sturgeon or Bradbury or Matheson. I'm not into Barbarians with swords but I would kill to tackle Fafhrd and Grey Mouse… and so on and so forth… I'm a believer but not a Dogmatic.
Allow me to put a final, finer point to our discussion. The aesthetics of Hellboy II are completely Pop and color-saturated, much more comic book / modern than I would ever use in The Hobbit but- I spend two years creating a world of Fairies, Elves, Trolls, etc
Two Years. A career / creative decision that precedes any inkling of The Hobbit. I wrote the script years before I met with PJ or Fran. In other words I dedicated the last 6 years of my career (between PL and HBII) to create Fantastical world inhabited by Fairies, Fauns, Ogres, Trolls, Elves, etc
In that respect- I guess I am a Fantasy guy when the particular world appeals to me. Back in the Jurassic Period (1992 / 1993) when Cronos won the Critic's Week at Cannes I was referred to as an "art house guy"- I followed that with a giant cockroach movie that proved successful enough to spawn two sequels and allow me to co-finance THE DEVILS BACKBONE which send me back to being an "art house guy". Then I did BLADE II and people thought of me as an "Action guy"- PJ went through a similar mercurial career with HEAVENLY CREATURES, BAD TASTE, DEAD ALIVE, etc I squirm away from a tag and I hope I can avoid being just a "Fantasy guy" after PL, HBII and H…
I do the tales I love (regardless of what shelf Barnes & Noble classifies the book under) and I love The Hobbit.
I love it enough to give it half a decade of my life and move half a world away to do it.
Peter Jackson: Having directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really felt that I put my heart and soul into dramatizing this world and story, only a few years ago. The idea of going back in and essentially competing against my own movies, seemed to be an unsatisfying way to spend the next 5 years. However, I love Tolkien and care deeply about the movies we made. I couldn't bear the idea of somebody else making them without our involvement. Being a writer and producer is the perfect way for me to work here. Guillermo has the ultimate responsibility of directing, and for him it's easier to make these movies feel different, simply because he's not me, and he therefore has an original vision, with new ideas to offer.
Believe me, I thought long and hard about this, and what we're doing here will result in better movies, I promise you. And that's all that counts!
Peter Jackson: OK we are almost done here folks and we have our last Q which was the most popular Q from the thousands of people who sent Qs in advance.
WETA Host: Which of the actors from Lord of the Rings will be back to reprise their roles in The Hobbit and its companion film?
Guillermo del Toro: Obviously, at this stage, the second film is still being figured out- so the actors that have been approached may or not have appeared in The Hobbit as a literary work but still may appear in the second film as it "blends" into the Trilogy and expands. Therefore what can be said is: Unequivocally, every single actor that originated a role in the Trilogy will be asked to participate and reprise it. If Health, availability or willingness become obstacles – and only in that case recasting would be considered.
Peter Jackson: Like Guillermo says, apart from extreme circumstances, we would never recast a character who appeared in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You can read The Hobbit and pretty much see which characters play a part. The unknown factor is Film Two, which we are still developing. If we wished to write one of the Lord of the Rings characters into the narrative of Film Two, we would only do that with that actors blessing, and willingness to take part. Otherwise we'd take the writing in another direction.
Guillermo del Toro: Time is up – But I can proudly say that only a FEW asked "How can I be an extra?" so my heart swell with pride with the many questions that you were kind enough to submit- More chats and wandering in the message boards await us- See you soon…
Peter Jackson: So that is it for us for this morning or this evening, or middle of the night wherever you are. We are sorry that is all we could get through but we did try to have each of the Qs represent similar things that many of you have asked. So hopefully it gives you a little bit of info. As I said the truth is there are a lot of unanswered Qs for us as well at this stage of the process. We will know a lot more once the scripts are written which is the next job that we will be doing and it will take most of the rest of this year I imagine. Hope this has been helpful and thank you for all the incredible support now and in years gone by. Best wishes, Peter J.
Guillermo del Toro: May the hair on your toes, etc-
Peter Jackson: The transcript of this chat will be available here on the WETA site in a few hours time. Everyone here at WETA is looking forward to continuing this relationship with you throughout the hobbit experience and there are a lot of fun surprises to come over the next 4 years.
Guillermo del Toro: Viva WETA and the many "toys" they make! And may Cthulhu give me more shelves to put them on…
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