Now that we've launched these two new genre sites -- Horror Squad and ScFi Squad -- there's going to be a good amount of content over there that's not over here. Like this post from SciFi Squad about Guillermo Del Toro, who just updated (and cast) a couple of his new projects.

Don't ask me how Guillermo del Toro works on four hundred projects at once, because it always amazes me to see how much he's got going on, and it's also inspiring to see a filmmaker that passionate about creating and conceptualizing and coming up with awesome new things for the world and his fans. Guillermo del Toro is exactly the kind of guy we want handling some of these more fanboy-ish properties because he's a true geek -- and while other filmmakers are using their celebrity status to attend parties at the Playboy mansion, this mofo is designing creatures and drawing in his sketchbook and working hard to please us.

Round of applause before we move on ...

In a new interview on BBC Radio, Del Toro let loose that he's already cast friend (and collaborator) Doug Jones as Frankenstein in his planned adaptation of the classic tale, and will begin testing things like make-up within the next few weeks -- though he admits (to Digital Spy) that he's "not in a hurry" and is perfectly fine shooting the film five or six years from now. "You have one shot in your lifetime at these things and I don't want to do it the wrong way." Next up: Del Toro reveals who he's already cast in The Hobbit.

Read the rest at SciFi Squad

Sure, all the early news and rumors about The Hobbit are fun to read, but we have to wait more than three years to see what Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro have cooked up. Three years is an eternity -- the world could end before The Hobbit (part one of two) arrives on the big screen in 2012! What's a Tolkien movie fan to do?

Hundreds of Hobbit-hungry volunteers in the UK came together to make The Hunt for Gollum, a 40-minute film based on the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, according to The Guardian. Reportedly, the short "shows Aragorn's quest to find Gollum, the tortured creature who seeks the ring for himself. And faithful to Peter Jackson's trilogy, the lead bears an uncanny likeness to Viggo Mortensen." Chris Bouchard directed the film, composed the music, and served as executive producer. He told The Guardian: "It was really motivated by a love of the material. We couldn't wait for The Hobbit and wanted to try to add to the saga. We shot every weekend for a year and really tried to mimic the professional film process as much as possible on our shoestring budget."

Their budget was £3,000, which converts to about $4,500, which is rather incredible. The film debuted last night at the London International Festival of Science Fiction, a pretty cool event itself. I watched the first trailer for The Hunt for Gollum -- and it's pretty freakin' impressive. Head to the official site to watch one of the teasers or the trailers (or watch one trailer below) -- the entire movie is also supposed to be available online, though technical troubles kept me from connecting.

Guillermo del Toro's prodigious creative output makes me hang my head in shame. He's not content to just direct, write, and produce internationally acclaimed movies; he's not satisfied torturing Ron Perlman and Doug Jones with freakish makeup or giving grown adults the sobbing heebie-jeebies. No, while you've been sitting on your couch, drinking beer and playing Guitar Hero, he's splicing and dicing The Hobbit and getting ready for the first part of his vampire trilogy to hit bookshelves. Yes, bookshelves.

Del Toro and Chuck Hogan have written The Strain Trilogy, the first volume of which will be available June 2nd. William Morrow has put up a really neat video interview with del Toro about his interest in "the otherness, the scary void of an animated corpse that lusts after your blood." (He also takes a nice dig at the sexy sparkly vamps of Twilight.) Expect gory deets on "how each of the feedings of these vampires is acutely detailed and painful to read, so you will experience this sense of dread and horror..." His vamps will be "as menacing, and as real, and as absolutely disgusting and alien as possible."

"I hope you enjoy the book!" he signs off cheerily.

Del Toro is such a character that I love reading or seeing any interviews with him. I really have to commend William Morrow on doing a video interview with him to promote the book; it's a cheap, easy way to drum up buzz and it speaks really well to the target audience of The Strain. Horror fans are tuned in to the Internet as much as sci-fi or comic book fans are, and although his pre-existing fan base would seek out The Strain anyway, other publishers should follow WM's lead for innovative online marketing. There are plenty of other great books out there that are falling between the cracks.

We've all known for a while now that Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson's teams of merry filmmakers were planning to make TWO movies out of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, but now we have confirmation of the plan by the filmmakers themselves, and they doled out a few small details to Empire Magazine in honor of the publication's 20th birthday. And those quotes go a little like this:

Del Toro: "We've decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur."

Jackson: "We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy."

As Empire's Chris Hewitt observes, this should put to bed those theories that one film would focus on The Hobbit and the second would be some sort of bridging appendices miscellaneous whatnot. Expect a lot more on The Hobbit over the next three years, including every nerdly little tidbit we can get our pipeweed-lovin' hands on.

And hey, Happy Birthday Empire!

If you can't get enough of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and trolls, we have good news for you. A fan site has heard "a report that negotiations are under way for a third film," meaning that The Hobbit, already slated to be released as two separate pictures, may be extended to become a trilogy.

An anonymous source told TheOneRing.net that the main sticking points are the contracts for Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro to allow for three more months of principal photography and "temporarily suspending some of their other projects." The same source speculates that the third film would delve "into the back-story of the Istari (Wizards) including Gandalf and Saruman's youth in Valinor." Our own Elisabeth Rappe previously wrote about the desire of seemingly every Lord of the Rings actor to appear in The Hobbit, and this rumor might allow for that.

Del Toro has spoken about The Hobbit as "two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative," so maybe the story has become so rich and complicated that he and Jackson don't want it to ever end (kind of like the concluding hour of The Return of the King). The original announcement of del Toro as director mentioned that he would be moving to New Zealand for four years to complete The Hobbit and its sequel, so what's another few months? Though I'm not a huge fan of the original LOTR trilogy, I am a huge fan of del Toro, so the more, the better. As it now stands, The Hobbit is due for release in December 2010, with its sequel to follow in December 2011.

I can never decide if the quotes from various Lord of the Rings actors on their participation in The Hobbit are merely wishful thinking on the part of all involved, or if they represent actual plans to bring back every last hobbit, Ent, and Ranger.

The latest rumor comes from Dominic Monaghan, who caught up with MTV at Sundance, and implied there had been talks to include our faithful hobbits in that much desired adaptation of The Hobbit. "They really want us to come back, and I think there's a really strong chance that we might be back. We're not in The Hobbit, no, but I think the idea in [Jackson's, Del Toro's and the other producers'] heads is that the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings films was so beloved by the fans that they're really keen to try to say thank you for the support that they gave to the Lord of the Rings movies and possibly bring back some of those characters that they know and love."

Now, I think the last solid Guillermo del Toro update we had suggested that The Hobbit might be split into two films, but keep strictly to the adventures of Bilbo, Gandalf, the dwarves, and their fight with Smaug, and the battle of Laketown. That sounds so much more sensible than a "bridge" film, as much as Middle Earth geeks would like to see some of those appendices.

On the other hand, everyone from LOTR seems to think they're coming back. I can accept Aragorn since he was actually alive and fighting during the events of The Hobbit. But Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin weren't -- and while the actors could ostensibly play other Baggins, Gamgees, Tooks, and Brandybucks, I really don't want that. The characters I know and love exist solely in Lord of the Rings, and I want to be thanked with an adapation of The Hobbit that is true to J.R.R. Tolkien's novel, not by weird cameos.

Interviews with Viggo Mortensen are a rather rare and wonderful thing -- or at least ones that don't get all coy and snarky over his remarkable intelligence and publishing company. So, when I saw Capone's interview with Mortensen over at Ain't It Cool News, I had to share it with you all.

His thoughts on the upcoming Good are too long and interesting to crop and paste here -- but what I will post is his disappointment over The Road being delayed. Despite starring in the film, he is unsure what's going on with it. "My understanding is that they know that they've got a story that a lot of people want to see, because of the book. And, the people that read the book, which are many, were very moved by it and by this relationship between this boy and this man, in particular, in that setting. And, I think that they are really aware of the fact that they've got one chance to do it, and if there's any little things that they still want to work on a little more, to get it just right, whether it's the music --I don't know what it is -- a variety of things, they want to do it right. And, if you rush it out before you feel in good conscience it's there ... So, I am disappointed. I wanted to see it. I want to see how it is."

He's also concerned that the film might be released at the wrong time of year, and is hoping for a fall release. "What I hope they don't do is then just put it out in February or something. I hope they wait and do it at the right time. I don't know." (Yes, Weinstein Co. Release The Road in the fall, please. No February or March dump!)

As far as I'm concerned, all discussion about the merits and viability of 3-D technology must be put on hold until we get a look at James Cameron's Avatar. By all accounts, Cameron is genuinely trying to turn 3-D into a storytelling tool instead of the equivalent of a theme park attraction, and I think highly enough of the guy to suspect he might be able to pull it off.

Meanwhile, cinephile concerns notwithstanding, 3-D's mainstream popularity continues to surge. Guillermo del Toro now won't rule out the possibility that we'll be able to see his Hobbit films in three dimensions. "Right now what we have is, you don't have two filmmakers and two screenplay writers -- you have four screenplay writers," he says. "We'll be talking about 3-D, on IMAX -- but [not] right now."

IMAX, I think, is probably a foregone conclusion. But 3-D? The first Hobbit is slated for release in December, 2011, which is two years post-Avatar, thank goodness. My pre-Avatar brain revolts at the notion of seeing Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films in 3-D. At the moment I'm not thrilled about the prospect for The Hobbit, either -- but there I go again, breaking my own rules. James Cameron sees all, and knows all...

[via The Envelope]

Middle Earth fanatics have long debated what the heck this whole "second Hobbit movie" would entail. Arguably, there's enough material for a prequel, with Gandalf leading battles into Mirkwood to fight Sauron, who was slowly rebuilding his dark kingdom. But recent news has suggested it is more of a Hobbit sequel, where Tolkien's material is scarcer.

Well, MTV News caught up with director Guillermo del Toro, who attempted to shed a little light on the topic. "The reality is that we stopped talking the first movie and second movie, and we just started taking about the movie - the two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative. We don't even call it the bridge movie, we just call it 'The Movie.' And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings -- we understood. It's a movie. We all agree that if we do our job right, it should all feel like a continuous journey. That's what we're striving for."

Is that any clearer? No, I didn't think so. But actually, del Toro dropped one hint, one riddle in the dark that might just solve everything -- he let slip where the first movie would end. "We are finding out. I think Smaug dies in the first movie. So draw your own conclusions."

And my conclusion would be that with Smaug's death concluding the first movie, the second would deal with the Battle of the Five Armies, where everyone from elves to the men of Esgaroth have an eye on claiming Smaug's gold. It's pretty epic and vicious, and could easily take up an entire movie. In fact, I'm not sure how they could get all of that into one Hobbit film. I think this is going to turn out to be a sensible move that does the book justice -- not the cash grab we all took it for.

The reason everyone loves Guillermo del Toro can, I think, be summed up in this new Hobbit related quote. "Believe me, I am jumping up-and-down inside this fat body!"

Yes, del Toro teased us all with Hobbit talk when he appeared at the Director's Guild of America recently and spilled all kinds of information regarding Middle Earth and his adaptation of Frankenstein. ComingSoon has the whole delicious thing, but I'll post my favorite bit -- his research into the mind of J.R.R. Tolkien: "I find you have to discipline yourself to write in the morning, and then watch and read in the afternoons stuff that seems relevant, even in a tangential way. For example, reading or watching World War I documentaries or books that I think inform The Hobbit, strangely enough, because I believe it is a book born out of Tolkien's generation's experience with World War I and the disappointment of being in that field and seeing all those values kind of collapse. I think it's a turning point that you need to familiarize yourself with."

And naturally, he sounds most excited about tackling Smaug. "Essentially, Smaug represents so many things: greed, pride ... he's 'the Magnificent,' after all. The way his shadow is cast in the narrative you cannot then show it and have it be one thing, he has to be the embodiment of all those things. He's one of the few dragons that will have enormous scenes with lines. He has some of the most beautiful dialogues in those scenes! The design, I'm pretty sure that will be the last design we will sign off on, and the first design we have attempted. It is certainly a matter of turning every stone before figuring out what he looks like, because what he looks like will tell you what he is."