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 an interview with MTV News, Guillermo Del Toro refused to fractionalize Tolkiens book into component parts.

“We don’t even call it the bridge movie, we just call it ‘The Movie.’ And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings - we understood. It’s a movie.”

It will be just like The Lord of The Ring, three separate volumes intented in a single, large one.

The division made with The Hobbit is due to solve the narrating issues of the second episode.

“We all agree that if we do our job right, it should all feel like a continuous journey. That’s what we’re striving for,” Del Toro said. “You should see a movie that’s five pictures long. If we do our job right, you put in ‘The Hobbit’ and you wind up watching the entire Pentology!”

What a long day it would be!, “But it’s a good day!” Del Toro laughed. About the end of the first episode, will it follow the text accurately?

“We are finding out,” Guillermo said. “I think Smaug dies in the first movie. So draw your own conclusions.”

Do you think Guillermo Del Toro has it all planned?

Composer Howard Shore, who composed The Lord of the Ring’s soundtrack, has confirmed in a recent interview to be working in The Hobbit’s music. You can read the full interview below

Sohaib: (speaking about the attendance at the celebratory concert) … I know a lot of the attendee’s are huge fans of Lord of The Rings films and I have to ask a couple of questions related to those films. I feel, to me, they are the seminal works in film over the last 35 to 40 years. And I think you’re score is as a critical as important as the actors and directors in that piece. To me it is one of the premiere pieces of modern music. Looking back at the film itself and your work on the Lord of the Rings is there a particular piece your most proud of, and is there a particular piece that you most personally relate to?

Howard Shore: Its such a vast epic story, that I always relate it to the very small intimate story of The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings really is this relationship of Frodo and Sam, and it’s at the centre of it, and I’m very keen on making sure that that was always close to my writing and close to my heart.

Sohaib: Hmm, as that story was to all of us. One last question before we go Howard, I have to ask you – You brought up the Hobbit. The new Hobbit films are obviously on their way in the next couple of years – are you going to be involved with this project, and if so, are you already started thinking about ideas along those lines. Will we see similar themes carried over from the original trilogy to the new films?

Howard: Yes I am starting to work on the Hobbit. A lot of the group is coming back together to work on it. It’s really a wondrous occasion. It’s fantastic guide for me to be able to go back to Middle earth and create more music , ‘cause these films, the films, are placed before Fellowship of the Ring, so I have to go back into Middle earth a little earlier and pick up my writing, and write a piece that would grow and take you right into Fellowship of the Ring.

Sohaib: Well Howard, it’s a great honour. A couple of years ago I had the great pleasure of driving all the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh for the first time ever to actually see you conduct the symphony out there – The Lord of the Rings Symphony – and you probably don’t recall, you ‘ve met thousands of people throughout the world – but I remember meeting you out on the street Hine Centre there. Again its a real honour, and I speak personally as a fan, not only of your work on this film, but the other film. I want to thank you for all you’ve contributed to these films and the projects that you do, any projects you are going to be working on, I know they are going to be outstanding. Good luck on this momentous occasion this weekend, and I know its going to be incredible and Im definitely, definitely looking forward to it. Thanks for taking the time.

Howard: Thank-you.

Thanks TheOneRing!