Del Toro: 'The Hobbit 2' Faces Legal Monster

Director Guillermo del Toro ("Hellboy," "Pan's Labyrinth") told SciFi Wire about his plans for directing two Lord of the Rings prequel films. The first will be based solely on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." The second film will act as a bridge by focusing on events hinted at in the books that led up to Lord of the Rings.

But copyright restrictions limit del Toro to only "The Hobbit" and the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings. That means "The Silmarillion," completed by Tokien's son, which offers backstory and mythology, plus any other Tolkien writings, are off limits.

But del Toro said optimistically, "There is enough ... narrative abridgement and some other pieces of narrative and suggestions and appendix notes and this and that to guide and create something that will not infringe anything else. But it's too early for me to swear by it. I think that that's the real creative endeavor on the second film."

Defiantly, del Toro plans on reading all "Lord of the Rings" material out there whether he can us it or not. He feels that it is better ... "Not to know it and use it, but to know it and not step on those things."

This is just another legal issue that joins a growing list of past legal problems for "The Hobbit" and the Lord of the Rings. On Feb. 11, the Tolkien estate filed a lawsuit against New Line for violating their original agreement of a 7.5 percent cut of the gross from The Lord of the Rings film adaptations and any other Tolkien film.

In March 2005 Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson filed a lawsuit against New Line claiming he didn't receive money owed to him from merchandising, video and computer games releases. That lawsuit got him in trouble with New Line co-founder Robert Shaye, who called Jackson greedy and said he would never again direct for New Line. Luckily, New Line changed its mind, sort of, by asking Peter Jackson to executive produce and co-write the two "Hobbit" films with del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyen.

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