When I wrote this article over a year ago, I meant it as a joke. But with the news today that Peter Jackson has a perforated ulcer, delaying The Hobbit yet again, I’m suddenly not so sure it is a joke.

First, there was all that bad blood between New Line Studios and Peter Jackson over profits from the Lord of the Rings movies. Then there was a lawsuit from the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien where they threatened to shut down the entire production of the movie version of The Hobbit. Now MGM is suddenly on the verge of bankruptcy, jeopardizing the production all over again.

Is The Hobbit cursed or what? Will this movie ever see the light of day?

Industry observers say it’ll all work out in the end — that there’s way too much money at stake for the movie to not get made.

I’m not so sure. Here are my predictions for what can — and almost certainly will — jeopardize The Hobbit next:

• A man who went to kindergarten with Tolkien will sue the producers for a share of the profits, claiming the Lord of the Rings author plagiarized his books from the man’s contributions to “storytime.”

• Andy Serkis will insist on playing the part of Gollum with the voice of Donald Duck.

• Swine flu will take out the entire New Line staff.

• Guillermo Del Toro, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh will become involved in a complicated love triangle which results in none of them speaking.

• Olaf Engelstad, a man of Norwegian descent, will sue the producers for a share of the profits, claiming his ancestors invented the concept of the “elf.”

• Director Guillermo Del Toro will be replaced by Eli Roth.

• Locusts will descend on New Zealand.

• The trend of big-budget special effects extravaganzas will come to an abrupt end as Americans suddenly develop an insatiable yearning for non-linear foreign film (without subtitles).

• The descendants of Eadweard Muybrid will sue the producers for a share of the profits, reminding them that Muybrid was the inventor of “film.”

• Peter Jackson will reveal that he’s become Amish and insist that no technology whatsoever be used in the making of the movie.

• The part of Bilbo will be played by Sofia Coppola.

• Unable to vanquish the locusts, New Zealand will also fall into eternal darkness.

• Ian McKellen will develop massive boils.

• Eli Roth will replaced by Rob Zombie.

• Actual Ents will be discovered in the Redwood forests of California, right before they go on a rampage, destroying Los Angeles.

• Still consumed by locusts and darkness, New Zealand will sink into the ocean.

• CGI green-screen technology will become impossible when God unexpectedly eliminates the color “green.”

• A meteor will crash into the planet, eliminating all life on Earth.

• Peter Jackson is definitely directing The Hobbit (duh), the movies will probably be in 3D and will cost a total of $500 million, and the original Lord of the Rings trilogy may also be redone in 3D!

• Does anyone care about the plot for the latest Superman reboot? Basically, DC’s 12-issue 2003 series Superman: Birthright.

• Warehouse 13 is coming back for a third season (again, duh). Also, showrunner Jack Kenny is getting a development deal!

• The Broadway musical version of the classic horror movie Carrie is considered one of the biggest flops of all time … so of course they’re bringing it back! (Actually, its notoriety has since made it a cult classic, so it does make sense.)

• A review of the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, based on an early screening.

• What if Alfred Hitchcock has directed the trailer for Inception? Well-done.

• Now that’s a good book advertising campaign! “Vampires that don’t sparkle.”

• This sounds like a gag. Dungeons & Dragons is a finalist for the National Toy Hall of Fame, competing with chess, dominoes, the Magic 8-Ball, playing cards, and Hot Wheels. Existing “winners” include Barbie and “the stick.” Everyone’s treating this like it’s real, but I still say it’s a gag. “The stick”?

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With the news that Guillermo del Toro will be unable to direct The Hobbit (due to an expanded commitment), talk has turned to the next obvious choice: Peter Jackson, who directed the first three movies and is producing the two-part version of The Hobbit.

But Jackson is contractually obligated to be working on other movies at the same time The Hobbit would be filming — and some are speculating that these contracts may even specifically forbid him from working on The Hobbit.

Jackson’s manager, Ken Kamins, immediately ruled out his directing the movies:

[Jackson can't consider directing the movies] at this time because he has and has had other commitments and obligations to other projects.

But shortly thereafter, Jackson said he would consider it if need be — though even he acknowledged it may be impossible. He told a New Zealand newspaper:

If [directing the films is] what I have to do to protect Warner Bros’ investment, then obviously that’s one angle which I’ll explore…The other studios may not let me out of the contracts.

In Jackson’s Saturday announcement that del Toro will not be directing, Jackson also 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.

But the announcement also said:

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.

If del Toro, who had been planning on directing the films, was unable to take six years to direct the films, it seems likely that Jackson, who already has a number of contracted obligations, will have the same problem.

Events are obviously moving rapidly, so it’s unclear how this will all play out. Jackson only found out that del Toro was leaving the film on Saturday.

In the never-ending drama that is The Hobbit’s journey to the big screen, we’ve hit another pothole: Guillermo del Toro, the much-loved and lauded director of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth, will no longer be at the helm for our next trip to Middle Earth.

According to a statement he posted on TheOneRing.net, del Toro will continue to collaborate on the script with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens (the writers of The Lord of the Rings). His reason for departing the films are the expanded timetables, which he foresees preventing him from other projects he was intending to work on.

Peter Jackson, who directed the Rings films and is on board as a producer, has said they don’t anticipate this development will halt the production schedule.

With rumors flying fast and furious, it’s become virtually impossible to know what’s true and what isn’t about the upcoming two-part movie version of The Hobbit.

Peter Jackson

Moviephone.com recently sat down with producer Peter Jackson to spell out the exact current status of the films:

(1) Filming has not been delayed; it was never announced in the first place.

“The studio [MGM] has never greenlit The Hobbit,” Jackson said, “so therefore The Hobbit has never been officially announced as a ‘go’ project, nor have we ever announced a date. But there’s so much interest that people — newspapers and magazines, of their own account, say, ah, it’s likely to film in May, it’s likely to film in June, it’s likely to film in September. People make this stuff up. And then if it’s not filming in June, you get a story saying, The Hobbit’s been delayed.’”

(2) The screenplays are done and delivered to the studio.

“Literally last week, we delivered the second of the two screenplays — the first draft,” Jackson said. “So the studio’s got both scripts now, which is a milestone; and if anything was holding it up, it was us doing the screenplays, because we’d just been writing as fast as we can, but it took us this long to get them finished.”

(3) Peter Jackson thinks they’ll be shooting before the end of the year.

“I would imagine October, November, we’d be shooting by,” he said. “I’m not announcing it, though.”

(4) No one has officially been cast yet, including those actors, such as Ian McKellen, who are reported to be returning from The Lord of the Rings.

“We haven’t signed any actors up yet, because we couldn’t do that until they greenlight the movie,” Jackson said, adding that they’ve auditioned a few actors, but aren’t very far into the process.

That said, “Any character that’s returning from The Lord of the Rings, we obviously would love the same actors to play,” he said. “But even those actors haven’t been approached yet, or there [haven't] been any deals done.”

(5) The voice of Smaug will be provided by Fran Drescher.

Just kidding about that last one. It just seemed like everything else that’s been reported about the movies has been flat-out wrong, so I might as well throw that one in too.

Read the whole interview with Peter Jackson.

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: Settle an argument: in The Two Towers movie when Gandalf the White appears to Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas in Fangorn Forest, he is at first mistaken for Saruman — and, in fact, he looks and sounds a lot like Christopher Lee, the actor who portrays the other white wizard. But Ian McKellen has said that that’s entirely his voice and his face. Can that be true? — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

A: McKellen definitely maintains that it’s his voice and face — he still says that it’s “All my own work in Fangorn” on his website.

But he is misremembering. In the DVD commentary, Peter Jackson calls the scene a “visual trick,” pointing out that, “Very briefly, Christopher Lee’s eyes are actually glued onto Ian McKellen’s face…You also hear Christopher Lee’s voice — it’s blended in with Ian’s. We did want people, at least the uninitiated, to think that this possibly was Saruman.”

Co-screenwriter writer Philippa Boyers confirms this version of events: “They both tried to sound like each other” in the looping, she says, but “Christopher Lee could imitate Ian McKellen more than Ian could imitate Chris Lee.”

Q: I’m curious what you and your readers think are the top fantasy book series. Motivation is selfish, too — I want to know what to read. I’m also interested it what people specifically don’t like, and why — e.g., the Narnia series is too religious, and the anthropomorphic animals don’t work for me.  Also not liking Stephen Donaldson. With that, I’ll list mine: The Lord of the Rings, A Wizard of Earthsea, and Harry Potter. — Robert

A: The Oracle would strongly agree with The Lord of the Rings and Earthsea, but would also enthusiastically add A Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Marin, the first Kushiel trilogy by Jaqueline Carey, and (yes) The Chronicles of Narnia and The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (but not the third trilogy, which is almost unreadable).

Among kids’ books (of which I’m a fan), I’d also add almost anything by Roald Dahl, but especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (although not the terrible sequel, Charlie and Great Glass Elevator). The Oracle also loved Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story and Momo, The Chronicles of Pyrdain by Lloyd Alexander, Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, and Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn books.

Harry Potter? Truthfully, the Oracle enjoyed them, but found most of the books badly in need of editing, and many of plot-lines forced, especially the conclusion. The Oracle also always thought the following books or series were over-rated, in order from least to most over-praised: A Wrinkle in Time, Inkheart, The Sword of Truth, The Wheel of Time, The Sword of Shannara, and Twilight. (Full disclosure: The Oracle doesn’t read all the books in series he doesn’t like, so perhaps these books improved over time.)

But the Oracle is far more interested in hearing what readers think!

Q: Another question: what is fantasy? For me, it’s not just supernatural. Magic has to be part of that reality. For example, The Dragonriders of Pern series isn’t strictly “fantasy” to me — the planet has spaceflight. Though the dragons can traverse space and even time, my memory is that this ability is never framed as magical, and no other magic seems to exist. — Robert

A: With something as complicated as literature, descriptive genres are, of course, mostly arbitrary, and made that much more so by all the writers who are defiantly (and wonderfully) blurring the boundaries. Labels are just labels, after all.

Here at TheTorchOnline.com, we define “fantasy” broadly. In general, if it involves magic, we cover it, but we’d throw in the dragons of Pern too, even without magic, just because they’re mythical creatures. We also cover some paranormal and “otherworld”-themed projects, as well as some projects involving history-based adventure and/or palace intrigue. Most superheroes also fall under our rubric.

As I said, it’s all pretty arbitrary, and “speculative fiction” is rapidly becoming a catch-all term — although it also includes hard science fiction, outright horror and slasher, and other genres that we almost never focus on here.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said about hard-core pornography that it was hard to define, but “I know it when I see it.”

I think the same is true of fantasy. But like hard-core pornography, what’s “fantasy” for me may not be that for someone else. Viva la difference!

Q: In 1976, I read a vast number of science fiction anthologies, and read a story about an outpost planet that only ever had one human inhabitant, but they kept going mad with the loneliness. The story was about the latest man, who was promised a solution from earth. Eventually the ship arrived, but it appeared to disappear.  The closing line of the story was the “sound of a seagull”. Any idea who wrote this, and where it could still be obtained? — Errol

A: Sadly, this is beyond even the All-Knowing, Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle’s near-omniscience. But perhaps a reader can help us both out.

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

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The incredible resurgence of the fantasy genre, which began in the 1980s and gathered steam in the 1990s, exploded in the 00s.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the amazing success of The Lord of the Rings movie franchise, the three movies of which were all released this decade:  The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003).

By any measure, the movies were an unparalleled success. Together, they make up the most financially successful movie trilogy of all time, grossing almost  $3 billion worldwide and beating out both Star Wars trilogies (although the original Star Wars trilogy out-grosses Rings when adjusted for inflation).

The films received rave reviews, and currently hold a cumulative 94% “fresh” on the RottenTomatoes.com compilation of film reviews — an extraordinary rating for a single film, much less three.

The films were nominated for 30 Academy Awards and won 17 — the most for any trilogy and another extraordinary achievement, especially given that all three films were nominated for Best Picture. The Return of the King ties the record (with Ben-Hur) for the most awards won by a single movie (11).

Even so, plenty of movie critics were somehow able to convince themselves to ignore the obvious in their own “best of the decade” lists — probably due to a combined suspicion of both massive box office success and genre projects in general.

But early in December, Entertainment Weekly acknowledged the truth, naming the movies the Best of the Decade.

Interestingly, in other end-of-the-decade news, Harry Potter dominated the bestselling book list for the decade, holding six of the top ten spots. Fantasy (in the form of the Twilight books) holds three of the other ten slots, with a fantasy-esque book, The Da Vinci Code, holding the last spot.

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Following a Tolkien movie adaptation tradition, director Guillermo Del Toro is giving himself a cameo role in his upcoming film version of The Hobbit, he revealed in a posting Monday at TheOneRing.net.

He wrote on the site’s message board that he’ll play a monster:

“I had a hand on the design of the creature and I will personally sculpt the appliances that will be applied on my face and hands. I used to sculpt the creatures for NECROPIA (my FX company) and I miss it a bit. I will have a line or two and die quickly.”

Director Peter Jackson played several different cameo roles in The Lord of the Rings movies: a drunk in the village of Bree, and a Rohan warrior.

In a separate interview last week, Del Toro discussed the creation of another Hobbit monster, the dragon Smaug:

“Obviously, he took the longest. It’s actually still active: we’re finishing his color palette and a little bit of the texture. But the bulk of the design took about a year, solid. It’s because of the unique features of the dragon. Early in production, I came up with a very strong idea that would separate Smaug from every other dragon ever made. The problem was implementing that idea. But I think we’ve nailed it.”

The Hobbit, which will be split into two movies, is currently in pre-production in New Zealand. No other casting news has been announced.

The news about his cameo isn’t the first time Del Toro has posted sometimes cryptic messages about himself on TheOneRing.net, a site about Tolkien’s work. For example, prior to a deal he recently announced with Disney to develop “scary” genre-related films, books, and merchandise, Del Toro hinted at the partnership in a message on the site.

Peter Jackson’s production of The Hobbit is back “safe” on the forest path.

The project, which was fast developing a reputation for being as troubled as Bilbo’s misadventures in Mirkwood, received more bad news two weeks ago when MGM, the studio that is financing the movie in a 50/50 split with Warner Brothers (which owns New Line, the direct producing entity),was facing major financial difficulties.

But late last week, the company confirmed that its lender was allowing it to miss three interest payments on a $3.7 billion outstanding debt. The three-month reprieve is a major boost for the studio.

There was little chance that MGM’s financial problems would have resulted in the film’s not being made, but it was possible that the studio might have had to sell its interest in the film to meet its immediate obligations, possibly delaying the production.

For the time being, the project will stay at MGM with co-producer Warner Brothers covering any immediate costs. MGM’s success in keeping the rights, along with the rights to other franchises such as James Bond, is seen as a major factor in the studio’s future viability, since The Hobbit is widely regarded to be big moneymaker.

The project, which will be released in two parts starting in 2011, will be directed by Guillermo Del Toro, with screenplays by Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens (who wrote The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy) and del Toro.

Contrary to earlier reports, the first draft of the screenplay is still not finished.

So far, the casting news from the upcoming movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit has been surprisingly confusing.

First, director Guillermo Del Toro announced in a radio interview in June that Hugo Weaving, Ian McKellen, and Andy Serkis were all going to reprise their Lord of the Rings‘ roles — a claim that was immediately disputed by a confused Weaving, who said he hadn’t signed on for such a gig (but would be willing).

Then four weeks ago at ComicCon, producer and Hobbit co-screenwriter Peter Jackson said that he was about a month away from delivering a screenplay, and that no casting decisions for the film would be made until at least a month after that.

But last night, Ian McKellen told an audience at a screening in London that, in fact, he has already been cast in the project (which will be split into two movies), and that he expects filming to begin in March 2010.

McKellen also claimed, seemingly contrary to Jackson’s comments at ComicCon, that the part of Bilbo has already been cast as well, though he declined to name the actor, saying only that fans would be very pleased. James McAvoy, who played Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, has been frequently mentioned as a possibility, though he has since signed for other roles that may put him in conflict with such an acting gig.

Five Torches (Out of Five)

What would happen if aliens visited earth?

I’m not talking about sentimental film treacle about heartlights and flying bicyles, or the ego-stroking flattery about how America is so flippin’ incredible that it could even take down aliens with far superior technology (and no anti-virus software, apparently).

No, what would really happen? How would human beings truly react in the presence of alien beings?

District 9 pretty much tells it like it might very well be, and it ain’t pretty.

Told partly in documentary style, District 9 is the story of how, for reasons that are never quite clear, a group of more than a million insect-like aliens have become stranded on earth near Johannesburg, South Africa.

Flash forward 20 years, and the aliens have been put in a “refugee camp” known at District 9, where they’ve become subject to virulent racism, petty tyranny, and unbridled greed.

Then even that meager human generosity wears out, and the aliens are to be “relocated” to something that is basically a concentration camp.

You’ll spend the first thirty minutes of this movie wondering who exactly the hero is. But there is no hero — just one very weak, very pathetic man thrust into an extraordinary situation solely due to circumstances.

In fact, nothing about this film conforms to typical “movie” conventions — which is exactly why it’s so brilliant. Except for one obvious plot-twist (which has already been spoiled by being featured on the cover of EW), you have almost no idea where it’s going.

It all boils down to one withering accusation throw in the face of movie-goers: human beings are ultimately a very selfish species, caring about something precisely to the degree that we perceive it to be like us.

If you know anything about human history, or if you read the daily news , you know there’s far more than a kernel of truth to that charge.

This is brutal, provocative stuff — far more shocking than anything you saw in Hostel or Saw. But it’s the message that’s shocking, not its violence (which is graphic, but not extreme).

And just in case you’re getting the wrong idea from this review, the movie also works on the level of an absolutely riveting thriller — although, unlike the frequently-misunderstood Starship Troopers, it’s impossible to miss this movie’s message.

It’s also worth noting: this movie was not made on a mega-budget, but I have never seen aliens or special effects that look so utterly convincing.

If you’ve ever enjoyed science fiction on any level, go see this movie. It simply does not get any better than this.

I won’t go so far as to say that the film versions of The Lord of the Rings changed the world, but I think it could be posited that they changed the world’s perceptions of fantasy. All of a sudden, those who never knew a dungeon from a dragon were discussing hobbits, wizards, dwarves, and elves. The films made fantasy fans out of those who knew nothing of fantasy.

Of course, there was a steadfast group of Tolkien devotees who knew of the story as a book before it was a film trilogy, many of whom took umbrage at the fact that their — THEIR — story was now filmic fodder for the unwashed masses. These Tolkienites appointed themselves watchdogs of the epic, challenging everything they read on the internet about the films’ progress during production. However, when the films debuted, they were, for the most part, satisfied at the immense achievement of the director Peter Jackson and the entire team who brought the films to life.

There was, however, one problem. And it got very ugly.

As discussed in a previous article, there was a brief scene in the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, in which a minor character, Glorfindel, is replaced by another minor character, Arwen (played by Liv Tyler), in a roughly three-minute long rescue sequence. She comes on horseback, picks up the wounded hobbit Frodo, is pursued by evil wraiths, and calls upon the power of Rivendell to cause a river to wash away said wraiths.

A little later, as in the book, she has a quiet romantic moment with another hero, Aragorn. Then the titular fellowship leave Rivendell, and we don’t see her again. Her part is a cameo at most.

And when a certain subsection of fans saw this, they went ballistic.

But why? Having Arwen sub in for Glorfindel is far from the only change made to the story. There are others that are far more obvious: the absence of Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-Wight sequence, Frodo’s reduced age, the lack of music and poetry that make the books so charming, and the completely revised characters of Merry and Pippin.

So why zero in on Arwen in particular?

The answer is obvious to everyone except those who hated the changes to Arwen’s character. And that answer is simple, old-school sexism.

Tolkien didn’t put many women into his epic. Of the scores of characters in Lord of the Rings, only four of them are female, and one of those females is a giant spider. It’s a boys’ story, where men perform all of the major action, with the exception of Eowyn’s slaying of the Witch King. And it seemed like a lot of anemic nerds wanted it to stay that way.

In the extended version of The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin are about to be swallowed up by the wicked Old Man Willow when Treebeard, the Ent, arrives in the nick of time and saves them, saying to the beastly Willow, “Eat Earth…Dig Deep…Drink Water…Go to sleep.” This moment also occurred in the books, but rather than Treebeard, their savior was Tom Bombadil.

This is exactly the same as what happened in the first film with Arwen, yet not a peep was heard from the fans. Why? Because Arwen is a woman, and Treebeard is a…well, okay, he’s a walking tree, but he’s a walking tree that’s also a dude.

The elf Legolas, an extremely minor character in the book The Return of the King, had a ridiculously huge hero moment in the film version of Return, in which he toppled a Mumak (basically an elephant the size of a skyscraper). He climbed up the side of its body using the arrows that had pierced its hide, slew numerous enemies riding atop it, killed the beast, and then surfed down its trunk as it died, naturally landing on his feet. This is not a revised episode from the book, but rather invented wholly from scratch for the film. And what was the reaction of those same people who called for the beheading of Liv Tyler for sullying the pristine beauty of Tolkien’s work?

“Dude, Legolas is AWESOME!”

What amazes me is the number of excuses I’ve heard people make to allow the filmmakers their wiggle room, and yet Arwen consistently gets thrown to the wolves. When you step back and look at the films, you realize that the only plausible reason for people to single out that one, small alteration among many is because it cast a woman in a more proactive, heroic role, and that is clearly a mortal sin.

So I’m calling you out, nerds. It’s time to knock it off. If you ever want to actually get a girlfriend, you need to get with the times, and backing off of Arwen is a good place to start.

Incidentally, in the original script, Arwen was written into the battle at Helm’s Deep, arriving with Haldir’s troops. This allowed a brief reunion for her and Aragorn, before the film kicked into high gear with its awesome climax. I only wished they had kept this is in the film, because personally I would have loved to see Arwen and Aragorn fighting side by side, laying the smackdown on some Orcs. Alas, it was not meant to be, although they did film some of it. (Andif you have a keen eye and a few minutes to spare, you can catch a glimpse of footage of this in the bonus features on The Two Towers Extended Edition. You’re welcome.)

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