Source: Deadline, Heat Vision

June 25, 2010

On May 30th, director Guillermo del Toro made the surprising announcement that he would no longer be directing The Hobbit and its follow-up. At the time, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy director Peter Jackson said:

Guillermo is co-writing the Hobbit screenplays with Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh and myself, and happily our writing partnership will continue for several more months, until the scripts are fine tuned and polished. New Line and Warner Bros will sit down with us this week, to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition, as we secure a new director for the Hobbit. We do not anticipate any delay or disruption to ongoing pre-production work.

Our guess is that meeting went rather well, as Jackson is now reportedly taking over the director's chair for both films, in addition to executive producing and co-writing! His deal is being negotiated right now with New Line/Warner Bros. and MGM. Jackson will have to extricate himself from other project obligations to move forward with this.

Warner Bros./New Line tells ComingSoon.net that nothing is confirmed yet.