Speed bumps on the road to Hobbitown

This probably happens more often than we know: A guy has been tapped to direct the movie version of a famous book, in spite of the fact he hates the author.

[H]asn't anybody noticed that [Guillermo] del Toro has repeatedly said he doesn't like Tolkien, and that he never finished reading "The Lord of the Rings"? Here's what he told me in Cannes in 2006, when I asked him about the influence of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis on his own work: "I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits -- I've never been into that at all. I don't like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff."

Let's see, he doesn't like "little guys and dragons" or hairy-footed hobbits, and "The Hobbit" would be a movie about what, exactly?

To me, this alone is no reason not to give the job to del Toro. If he doesn't regard the LOTR series with near-religious fervor, he can be more objective in his interpretation and delivery of the story.

Comments

[Anthony]

I wonder if Peter Jackson (who's producing it) knows this and should maybe have a little chat with GDT along the lines of "you screw up this movie and I'll make sure you're still making Hellboy direct-to-video releases for the rest of your life, amigo..."
I know I would!
Of course, are PJ and GDT the same person? Rather like Michael Jackson and Dinana Ross...

[pam]

PJ is bound to know. At this point I can hardly untangle the knots to understand who has definitive controlling interest in The Hobbit, and therefore who picked the director.

Don't you mean Michael and LaToya? I think Michael and Diana have been seen together ...

[Anthony]

I think I mean Michael and J-Lo.
The Tolkien estate (ie, the very greedy son and grandson) own the literary rights; New Line Cinema owns some portion of the film rights (how much is subject to debate); Peter "Shirtless" Jackson got involved in a nasty feud for a few years with New Line and was all but persona non grata with them but that seems to have been worked out (ie, $$$ changed hands) and now he's sort of the "producer in charge" for the Hobbitt project and the one who picked GDT to direct the film(s).
By Hollywood standards, this is fairly clear-cut...