According to /film.com Guillermo del Toro has officially signed on to direct The Hobbit and its sequel which will cover the time between The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Rings. No scripts have been written yet for either film which Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will executive produce. In any case, this will easily take up the next 4 years or so of del Toro's life. His plan is to move to New Zealand to work with Jackson etc. as soon as post production wraps up on Hellboy II. I am extremely excited about this and I know that del Toro will do an awesome job on the Hobbit. He, in my opinion, is one of the best fantasy directors in existence right now. I had hopes that he would be doing the last 2 films (last book) of Harry Potter, but this is equally good news. I hope that even with Jackson partaking in the film-making process del Toro is given the chance to shine. I'm sure his brain is already bursting with ideas of sweet character costumes and set designs. I cannot wait. They are hoping for a 2011 and 2012 release dates.