Guillermo del Toro bids goodbye to "The Horbit"

By Siewaun
Reference: theonering.net

Yes, to all Horbit fans out there, this is for real! Guillermo del Toro has announced that he is leaving his "The Horbit" two movies director's position due to production delays.

Guillermo yesterday wrote an official announcement on The Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.net, "In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming "The Hobbit," I am faced with the hardest decision of my life. After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures. I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I’ve been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed.

"The blessings have been plenty, but the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for the project. Both as a co-writer and as a director, I wlsh the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director", says Guillermo.

But who can blame him, I mean, he has a long list of other projects such as HP Lovecraft’s "At the Mountains of Madness", "Frankenstein", "Drood", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Slaughterhouse-Five", and he has spend two years in New Zealand waiting for production to start when he could actually film one or two other movies during the time. And with production date is still uncertain, how long does he needs to wait...one or two more years? What would you do if you were in his shoes?

Though, Guillermo said that he will continue co-writing the script with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens.

Peter Jackson said, "We understand how the protracted development time on these two films, due to reasons beyond anyone’s control – has compromised his commitment to other long term projects. The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years."