As early as 2003, the same year that The Return Of The King made its cinematic bow, director Peter Jackson was talking about making The Hobbit into a movie.

“I'd be happy to do it,” he told the Associated Press. “It would be strange for somebody else to do it. And I also think to do justice to The Hobbit it would be great to bring some of the same actors back.”

The first two movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic Lord Of The Rings had at that point made almost $2bn in gross revenue, and been heaped with critical acclaim.

Despite various lawsuits filed by Jackson against New Line Cinema for unpaid royalties, it was no wonder that the studio remained keen for him to create a movie adaptation of LOTR prequel The Hobbit.

By December 2007, Jackson had been confirmed as The Hobbit’s executive producer, while New Line and MGM would co-finance the production. Just five months later, they had a director – Guillermo del Toro.

“I was calmly laying out the next decade of my life when The Hobbit appeared,” del Toro exclusively told us in October 2009. “I was preparing all these things and all of a sudden The Hobbit shows up and takes over my life.” The Mexican Pan’s Labyrinth director had long been a fan of Jackson’s, and got to work crafting his own designs for Middle Earth. But things were not meant to be…