Director Guillermo del Toro (see “del Toro Hobbit Deal”) and executive producer Peter Jackson (who directed the first three Lord of the Rings features) will script the two Hobbit films with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.  Walsh and Boyens wrote the first three films with Jackson; the three writers received an Oscar for the script for the third, Return of the King. 

Production is slated to begin late in 2009, with the two films to be released in 2011 and 2012.  The first will be a straight-up adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit; the second will take place between The Hobbit and the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring.