Despite Tobey’s dropping that he knows who will be replacing Sam Raimi as director for the planned Spider-Man4 movie reboot, the bigger news surrounding the Golden Globe nominee has been a rumor fueled by the entire internet that he’s currently signed on to play Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro’s The Hobbit.

But word has come from the Headgeek over at Ain’t It Cool News, via email from del Toro and Peter Jackson who is stepping back to the role of Producer for the two films being made from J.R.R. Tolkien’s lead-in to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, that the rumors aren’t true and that the production is still about a month or two away from making any announcements. Peter Jackson, in his email response even said that they’re  ”currently auditioning for Bilbo.”

Will this mean that in a month or so we’ll be completely shocked at who gets the role? Or might Maguire actually have a shot at it and the filmmakers are just playing coy? Let us know what you think of this idea, or who you’d like to see as Bilbo, in the comments below.

Peter Jackson has made films that many have considered “instant classics”, such as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, a bloated and unnecessary remake in the form of King Kong, and some little-seen but great cult classics such as Bad Taste, Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners. His newest film, The Lovely Bones, adapted from Alice Sebold’s novel of the same name, is kind of a combination of all of the above.

The story focuses on Susie Salmon, a fourteen year-old girl who lives in rural Pennsylvania with her parents and two siblings. She describes to us, via narration, what she wants to be when she grows up, her disliking of a snowglobe with a penguin in it, and even how she normally gets the “skeevies” when she sees someone looking at her weirdly. She didn’t get that last feeling soon enough, which inevitably leads to her murder and time spent in the “in-between” Heaven and Earth.

We see that the Salmons are an idyllic family as they get Susie a camera for her birthday. She is in the throes of her first unrequited love, and even has to suffer through a film club that makes her watch Othello with that guy “who has two first names. Laurence. Oliver.” It’s after this class, and a bold move from the boy that she likes, which leads her into the hands of Mr. Harvey.

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Shortly after I read The Lovely Bones in 2002, I started hearing rumblings that it was being optioned for a movie. My immediate reaction was “Why?” The emotionally devastating novel about the rape and murder of a fourteen year old seemed like dubious source material. The murdered girl resides in a self imposed ethereal limbo-land between heaven and earth for most of the book, making it logistical nightmare to film. I just didn’t understand how a filmmaker could pull it off.

In the case of director Peter Jackson, he couldn’t, and he didn’t. Jackson worked his magic with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but he is woefully out of his element here. The most shocking thing about seeing the film is that it is completely devoid of any emotion or warmth, the very characteristics that made the book so beloved. So much consideration is given to unnecessary special effects (that don’t even look good) that the crucial human interactions are lost, and that is a true pity. If you take those away, there is no reason to see this movie.

Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) plays Susie Salmon, who disappears on her way home from school one day. A nerdy and harmless looking neighbor, Mr. Harvey, lures Susie to a root-cellar like building in the middle of a field with the sheepish confession he has built a playhouse for the neighborhood kids. Susie feels honored to be the first child to see the playhouse, but she is ultimately raped, murdered, and dismembered in the claustrophobic dwelling.

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Out on DVD and Blu-Ray this week, District 9 is a new sci-fi masterpiece from writer/director Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings). The film is a documentary-style account about a race of aliens marooned on earth who have been quarantined in a shantytown, known by humans as District 9, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The film has an “apartheid” metaphor in that the aliens (referred derogatorily by humans as “Prawns” because they look like crustaceans) represent an oppressed minority, all while the humans see the aliens as a nuisance and want to be rid of them once and for all. The film mainly focuses on two main characters; a human who was the head of a relocation program for the aliens, and an alien trying to find a way to return home to his planet.

Special features for the disc include a series of interesting deleted scenes that never made it into the final cut.  Director commentary from Neill Blomkamp shows how the concept of District 9 was turned into a reality. In the special feature “Metamorphosis: The Transformation of Wikus”, we see behind the scenes footage of how the F/X team slowly turned actor Sharlto Copley from a human into a “Prawn.” Two other features include a concept design with production planners into creating the world of District 9 and the dazzling special effects that were generated for the film.

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Once Peter Jackson announced to the world that he would be writing and producing an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and that it would be two movies, there has been speculation as to just how the book will be split. Will it be cut in two and be a two-part adaptation like others are doing for the last Harry Potter and Twilight films or will the first movie be based on the book and the second serve as a bridge to Jackson’s Lord of the Rings?

Well, wonder no more because Jackson himself has cleared up the mystery, according to an interview he gave recently. The two movies will be based completely on the book.

“The second Hobbit script is still based on the Hobbit novel,” Jackson said in a group interview after a press conference for The Lovely Bones. “The Hobbit novel is in two parts.” Well, that sounds pretty definitive, doesn’t it?

In case you’re not familiar, The Hobbit tells the story of young Bilbo Baggins’ quest for a treasure guarded by the dragon Smaug. Written prior to The Lord of the Rings, it establishes some of the characters for that trilogy, including the wizard Gandalf and the evil Gollum, and the world of Middle Earth in which they live.

The first Hobbit movie is due in theaters in 2011, with part two following in 2012.

The Hobbit has been on everyone’s radar since the success of the Lord of the Rings films, but has been a long time coming. After New Line was sued by both director Peter Jackson and Tolkien’s heirs, Jackson is now reporting yet another delay to Variety.

Stating that writing on The Hobbit, which will be a two-part film, is slowing down production, Jackson said that he hopes that he along with Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens and director Guillermo del Toro will finish writing by the beginning of next year. Production would then start by the middle of next summer, a few months later than expected.

With Jackson as writer/producer and Del Toro at the helm, The Hobbit is sure to be worth the wait. However, fans of both the literature and the “Rings” trilogy are sure to be antsy to return to Middle Earth as soon as possible, so this latest delay won’t make them very happy.

The Hobbit films have reported release dates of December 2011 and December 2012, with no word as to whether the recent delays will push back these dates.

The recent economic downturn has had a ripple effect across the economy and now it’s threatening two of our favorite film prospects: The Hobbit and James Bond. In a conference call to bondholders studio Metro Goldywn Meyer sought funding to shore up the rest of the year and get projects on track. As money dwindles from MGM, management made a desperate plea to creditors:

“…with a request, or forebearance, to waive interest payments on MGM’s $3.5 billion killer debt until February 2010. Because if MGM doesn’t have to make those interest payments, then the studio can afford to use that money instead to fund the production slate.”

Just how bad is MGM at the moment? It needs, “$20M in short-term cash flow to cover overhead, and an additional $150 million to get through the end of year and continue funding its projects, and to start Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit.” Bondholders did not take the news well at all. In fact, reports indicate that they would sooner let the studio go bankrupt as they would be the first creditors to get paid back as assets were liquidated.

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For those of us who are a fan of the franchise, we all know the headache that comes with waiting for a live action Halo movie. From Peter Jackson to Steven Spielberg, the film has gone through so many rumors and incarnations, there’s no way of knowing if we’ll ever get to see the Spartans fragging aliens on the big screen. With that in mind, we have to take pleasures in the smaller things.

In promoting Microsoft’s Halo 3: ODST, out later this month, they produced a TV spot in which we see the life, and death, of an ODST Spartan. The team just released the uncut version, which is about a minute longer. It has a very strong Battlestar Galactica vibe, which works, because BSG can very easily meld with the Halo universe.

The video shows everything we’d expect to see from a Halo film trailer: the Spartan masks, a Covenant brute, explosions, and lots of yelling. Check out the uncut trailer after the jump, and pick up your copy of Halo 3: ODST on September 22.

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With director Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 making just over $37 million at the domestic box office this weekend ($7 million more than the production budget), it only makes sense that the studio and crew would be gearing up to return to the project for more. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Blomkamp mentioned that he would love to return to the franchise in a sequel.

”I would do anything to go back to the world of District 9 again,” Director Neil Blomkamp says. ”Or District 10.”

It makes perfect sense for the studio to do a sequel as well, being both cheap to make and lucrative. Also, with the story, the Robocop-style ending leaves the film open for many directions, and possibly many more films. We are even guilty of comparing this film to last year’s Cloverfield in our review, but the film has a similar tone.

The difference in this situation is that Cloverfield ends with pretty much no room for a sequel, unless you were to tell the story again from a different point of view. This would work out in the D9 universe perfectly. No word yet on how or if this will effect production on Jackson and Blomkamp’s Halo film.

There are a few types of Summer blockbusters out there these days. Of course, you’ll have the big “tent pole” films that cost $200 million and make triple that. You’ll also get the ones that cost a fortune and fizzle out fairly quickly. But every once in a while you’ll also get a film that comes virtually out of nowhere and leaves your mouth agape. District 9 is that film.

District 9 takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, where aliens landed nearly 30 years ago. Since then, they have been subjected to living in slums while their defunct mothership hovers above the city. On the macro level, the world is split between people who wish to embrace the differences of the aliens and people who discriminate against them and wish to kill them. On a micro level, an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA, making him neither human nor alien.

At it’s core, this film is many things. It’s not just a sci-fi action film. It has some serious undertones from oppression and bigotry to the evil things that man is capable of. It is many things, but if one were to stand out, it would be “smart.” From the first moments of the film where a collection of news and documentary footage helps introduce us to this world where aliens are real and have been inhabiting the planet for some time all the way to the conclusion, this film delivers.

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