The announcement, made jointly by New Line president and COO Toby Emmerich, Warner Bros. president and COO Alan Horn, and MGM co-CEO Steve Cooper, says the “the two films based on ‘The Hobbit’ are now greenlit and will begin principal photography in February 2011, under the direction of Peter Jackson.”
If the movie does not shoot in New Zealand, the country where Jackson made his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the filmmaker said Warners are looking at five different locales around the world to host the project.
