The Hobbit to Begin Production in February with Peter Jackson directing

(HMG Celebrity News) – The film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit has been green-lighted,but no location was named amid an ongoing union threat to boycott the production in New Zealand.  The announcement by New Line Cinema and its parent company Warner Brothers confirmed that Peter Jackson, who directed the three Lord of the Rings  films, is set to take the helm again. “Exploring Tolkien’s Middle-earth goes way beyond a normal film-making experience,” Jackson says in the release. “It’s an all-immersive journey into a very special place of imagination, beauty and drama.” (And, he might have have added, an all-immersive journey into the vagaries of film financing.)

There’s no word yet on who will play Bilbo Baggins, the film’s central character, although British actor Martin Freeman (U.K.’s The Office) is rumored to be the frontrunner. The film project has been plagued by setbacks for years. MGM declared bankruptcy and was forced to enlist Warner Bros. as a partner to get production started. Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro quit the project five months ago.  Del Toro is now working on “At the Mountains of Madness,” another large-scale fantasy project, expected to start production at roughly the same time as the Hobbit, and comparisons and what-ifs inevitably will follow.  And the Hobbit is still facing a slew of labor issues in New Zealand, where filming is expected to take place. International actors’ unions slapped a ban on the production after Jackson refused to negotiate with NZ Actors Equity over minimum standards on the set, prompting the director to threaten to move the shoot from New Zealand. According to The Wrap, the budget for the two films is estimated at $400 million, with the first film set set for a February date for production, with a target to hit theaters December 19, 2012, and the second arriving sometime in 2013.