1. Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit
What Could Have Been: After years of rights issues and legal battles between New Line Cinema in MGM, it was announced in December 2007 that Peter Jackson would return to Middle Earth as executive producer of two movies based on The Hobbit. As if the news wasn't enticing enough, four months later Guillermo del Toro was hired to direct. Despite the ongoing legal struggles between various parties, del Toro dived headlong into pre-production, developing the scripts, set design, concept art, practical effects and even preliminary casting. After almost two years of working on the The Hobbit, del Toro departed the project after a continued series of delays.
What We Got Instead: Almost three years after the original announcement, Peter Jackson officially signed on to dive back into the cinematic world he had so vividly created a decade earlier. The two movies were soon expanded to a trilogy, and in March 2011 principal photography finally began with additional shooting continuing all the way through to summer 2013. An Unexpected Journey opened in December 2012 and grossed over a billion dollars despite a decidedly mixed response, with the much better Desolation of Smaug earning $860.4m so far. The second Middle Earth trilogy will come to a close this year with the release of There and Back Again.
The Verdict: After del Toro left the project, there was realistically nobody else that could take over than Jackson; a man that has spent decades building and expanding the world of Middle Earth. Despite the visual familiarity and overlapping characters, The Hobbit movies have so far failed to come close to the outstanding Lord of the Rings trilogy. Stretching a 300 page book into three movies resulted in An Unexpected Journey moving at a turgid pace, dragging an already-slim narrative along with no real propulsion. With his penchant for gorgeously-designed creatures, practical effects and an obvious love of dark fairy tales, Guillermo del Toro's Hobbit had the potential to be absolutely astounding. No offence to Jackson, but it's a real shame we didn't get to see the Mexican director's take on the material.