An Unexpected Party.

"Like Guillermo says, apart from extreme circumstances, we would never recast a character who appeared in the LOTR trilogy. You can read The Hobbit and pretty much see which characters play a part. The unknown facter is Film Two, which we are still developing." Over the weekend, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro ventured online to discuss The Hobbit. Not much in the way of news made (other than the quote above), although it's worth reading for Del Toro's thoughts on Smaug, among other things. It does sound like they're winging this second "filler" movie, tho', which could be real trouble.