In a live chat, Guillermo Del Toro talked about the upcoming Hobbit movie:

Q:Universal announced a pretty busy slate for you after “The Hobbit.” Will we see a Hellboy 3?
A:If its up to me- yes!! But it is a corporate decision and regimes change very rapidly at these studios.

Q:There any professionals who worked with you on Hellboy II that will be joining you on the Hobbit?
A:Hopefully Mignola, Barlowe, Spectral Motion, Guillermo Navarro and others…

Q:Will you be using Danny Elfman as a composer again on future projects?
A:Absolutely, but not until after the HOBBIT films.

Q:Do you think filming Hellboy II helped prepare you for filming the Hobbit?
A:Technically, yes- but that’s not the challenge in THE HOBBIT. The challenge is to create and expand a massive universe and be as immersive as the Trilogy was. To approach Tolkien’s book with the right mixture of reverence, enthusiasm and invention.

Q:WILL THERE BE ANY COOL CREATURES IN HOBBIT LIKE HELLBOY2?
A:many many more and we will be pushing the goblin kindgom. we will be pushing smaug, the spiders of mirkwood. we will be pushing them to the edge of technology where we will fuse animatronics and cgi into a seamless new art form in creating creatures, i think.

Q:Do you plan to use any particular effects or techniques in the Hobbit that were used in Hellboy II?
A:Well, yes, but used in a different way. You will see some mind-boggling mixture of CGI / Puppetry like never before. The demarcation of where one technique ends and the other begins will NOT be as clean as in HBII or BLADE II or PAN’S LABYRINTH. I am going to push further than ever on both fronts.

Q:WHEN DOES FILMING FOR THE HOBBIT BEGIN?
A:it will begin in 2010 and we will shoot for about 370 days or so…

Q:At what age did you first read The Hobbit?
A:I believe it was between 10 years old and 11 years old. My first copy of it is dated as printed in 1973 and I know I bought it shortly after being published by a great publishing house called MINOTAURO which was (in my childhood years) like the CRITERION COLLECTION of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.

Q:How long did it take to create the script for this movie?
A:For the record- neither Peter Jackson nor I had the faintest contact about the HOBBIT movies prior to the absolute completion of HELLBOY II. I got Peter’s first call in December 2007- way after we wrapped the film. So, the visuals in the HOBBIT movie are not anticipated in the HBII movie.

Q:Will you be working with Guillermo Navarro on The Hobbit?
A:I hope so!!

Q:Does Mike Mignola have any involvement with you on The Hobbit?
A:I hope and pray he joins us at the design stage for a week or two.

Q:Who are your top choices to play Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming Hobbit Movies?
A:Hopefully, very soon we can reveal that-

In a new interview with Crave Online, Guillermo Del Toro talked briefly about the upcoming Hobbit movie:

Crave Online: I know it’s too early to talk casting, but doesn’t James McAvoy sound like a good idea right about now?
Guillermo del Toro: Really, if I was to answer either way, it would be unfair because I will tell you, Bilbo changes every time we write a new scene. It really is not facetious. Wherever we end up at, it’s going to come out of those pages.
Crave Online: But that was the most publicized rumor.
Guillermo del Toro: Yeah, but the fact is, the only thing I know of McAvoy is his movies. I’ve never met him. We’ve never had a chat and this is not me saying, “I did not have sex with that woman.” It really hasn’t happened. If it happens with any actor, I think it’s going to come out of the pages.
Crave Online: Have you made any casting decisions?
Guillermo del Toro: Not yet. Just the ones that have been announced. There’s not lack of information. It’s not withholding. We really don’t have more information because we’re writing. And literally, like every week, what you discover writing the two movies, writing the two stories, it changes. So every week there’s a discovery and anything we say this week would be contradicted next week. Certainly that would be true in casting. Why create hopes or why create expectations if down the line you’re going to go, “You know what? That was not a good idea.” So we won’t cast it until we finish writing.

Thanks Crave Online!

Today MTV Movies Blog reports that Elijah Wood wants to join in The Hobbit.

“The secondary film would bridge the gap between ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ chronologically,” Wood said, “so conceivably, it could be possible.”

Since the films are still being written, “it’s a ways away” before he would know, Wood said, but the trick is to have Frodo’s appearance not seem like an anachronism, since he wasn’t a part of “The Hobbit” adventure.

“That’s the thing,” Wood said. “I would imagine that if he does exist, it’ll make some sort of sense. Otherwise, I don’t think they would do it. I certainly wouldn’t want to do it. I don’t want to have a whole character piece that doesn’t really exist that they’re cobbling together.”

But he has faith in the filmmakers “in whatever they’re going to do in terms of bringing in any familiar characters back, just knowing their sense of upholding integrity.”

To MTV, it seems like the only logical thing would be to introduce Frodo at the very end. Once Bilbo has returned from his adventure, with all his riches, he becomes the most able relative in Frodo’s family to adopt him after his parents Drogo and Primula die in a boating accident on the Brandywine River. Wood agreed.

“Yeah, potentially,” he said. “There’s a lot we know historically about the characters where that would make sense. And personally, if I was involved, it would be to come on for a tiny little piece and have that be that.”