Guillermo Del Toro leaves The Hobbit

Lengthy delays and legal wrangles have just put paid to potentially the greatest fantasy film of our generation: congratulations MGM assholes, you've just ruined cinema.

Now that Lost has finished and he no longer has to play the role of Hurley, Guillermo Del Toro has announced he's leaving another project: The Hobbit. The movie - or movies, given that Tolkien's book was to be split in two - has been subjected to endless delays; first regarding royalty payments to Tolkien's bloodsucking family members, then again when studio MGM managed to spectacularly fuck up its budget. Slow hand clap for the pencil pushers.

Del Toro issued a press release to TheOneRing.net:

Del Toro will still be credited as co-writer, but as of now, the hunt for a new director has begun. Anyone brave/foolish enough to accept the poisoned chalice will have to spend three years of their life holed up in New Zealand; sounds like fun, but the reality is being shacked up with Peter Jackson, twiddling your thumbs and painting small metal orcs.

This? (*surveys the fallout*) This is what a catastrophe looks like. When Peter Jackson announced he wouldn't be directing The Hobbit, nerds openly wept into their weak lemon drinks. When Guillermo Del Toro announced he was picking up the slack, those same nerds threw their flasks in the air with joy. It was the perfect marriage of a creative director to imaginative material. And now it's been ruined because of corporate irresponsibility.

For the record, MGM are $3.7 billion in debt. That's not even a real number, that's a super-villain's ransom. They also own probably the biggest, most lucrative movie franchise in the world in James Bond, and own the rights to the work of J.R.R Tolkien, and they still can't balance the books properly.

Mind you, in the last few years, they also released Fame, The Pink Panther 2, Soul Men, Stargate: Continuum, Igor, Pathology, Superhero Movie, Lions For Lambs, Halloween and a film about a suicidal Scottish cyclist. Call me naive, but maybe they should have tightened up the quality control before spunking their wad on that massive Christmas do.

Back to Middle-Earth, and the huge disappointment waiting within. I'm drawing a total blank when trying to conjure up names of prominent fantasy directors. It's practically a dead genre: Jackson and Del Toro were basically the last two guys keeping the dream alive. Terry Gilliam? Too anti-system. Sam Raimi? (*shrugs*). Alfonso Cuaron, perhaps? Mike Newell, at a push? Ugh. It's like having to choose your new dad from a line-up of drunks and leches.