Is it more like
Waiting for The Hobbit, than Waiting For Godot?
Ian McKellen has spent the best part of the last two years traveling the world performing his part in the excellent Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot (
I caught it in Newcastle last April with Patrick Stewart co-starring) - the famous absurdist comedy about two characters waiting for a mysterious character who never shows. Ironically, McKellen himself has been waiting years for The Hobbit - a movie that similarly never wants to appear. Speaking to a New Zealand Good Morning t.v. show (via
Bleeding Cool) - McKellen reveals that '
a big announcement is imminent' on The Hobbit and that
"It'll either be, we're going ahead or we're not,". (Hobbit talk begins at 4.30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAr1nLcmqeQ Has it come to that? Are Warner Bros/New Line and MGM about to firmly and emphatically declare whether the movie is actually happening, and if that's the case, are they even in a state that they even do that with the financial situation the way it is?
The Hollywood Reporter claimed last week that the '$4 billion in debt' studio MGM were seeking a further extension with the banks, as they try and negotiate a buyout for their cash-strapped shingle.
One result of an extension may be a forced requirement that MGM sell off their rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's first Middle-Earth novel to Warner Bros. where New Line have been producing The Hobbit movie in conjunction with MGM for the past two years. If that were to happen, WB, one of the biggest studio's in the world will own the sole rights to The Hobbit and will be much more powerful in their decision making on the film, and things might finally start moving (though there would be a few months of paperwork/handovers and WB, to cut risks, would reach out to their rivals to co-fund). We've heard a January shoot possible but it all depends on the above, and there's a ticking clock over when this will all be resolved. So is this new McKellen statement just a case of the actor warning WB/MGM that if more delays are to come, they might lose him for good;
"Well, Im not under contract and my time is running out and Im enjoying working in the theater and frankly, I would like to race after doing 'Waiting For Godot,' get on with doing another play but well have to see. I dont give the producers the impression that Im sitting waiting."
Losing talent has of course already started. They lost director
Guillermo del Toro already and producer/possible director
Peter Jackson is concerned more might follow;
"What's of great concern to everyone right now is trying to stay on schedule and not slip back another year, because we will start losing people -- and that's increasingly difficult as each day passes. A lot of people -- both filmmakers and studios are working very hard right now, trying to get a positive outcome."
The clock certainly seems to be ticking and things don't look particularly optimistic right now that Peter Jackson will direct Ian McKellen (and others) in The Hobbit for it's projected Dec. 2012 release (for part one) and a year later (for part two).