With a burst of hopeful feeling for The Hobbit and the James Bond franchise, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced today that it has found new management and can finally tuck itself into the ugly chrysalis of bankruptcy proceedings and emerge as a bee-yutiful production company. Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum (founders of Spyglass Entertainment) will become its new CEOs, effective as soon as its bankruptcy proceedings have been worked through.

The buzz about Sylvester McCoy, veteran of British television (including a stint playing the Doctor), lately has been that he is in talks to play a certain part in The Hobbit, though definitely “not the Bilbo role.” (In other interesting facts: he also once played the part of the Fool in King Lear, against, yes, Ian McKellen as the titular monarch.)

Bleeding Cool, however, has a “trustworthy source” that has pegged his negotiations as revolving around a much more obscure character: Radagast the Brown.

Why do we care about negotiations for a bit part in The Hobbit? Because we’re obssesed? Well, yes. Of course. But also because Radagast doesn’t actually appear in The Hobbit, but if he does, it gives us a big hint on one of the movies’ big spectacles.

This is one of those prime examples of how Tolkien was an incredible historian and linguist but perhaps a bad novelist.

According to the ever vigilant blastr, a number of people over at the Disney bulletin boards have been receiving surveys from Universal that are essentially testing the enthusiasm for a Lord of the Rings themed park a la The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Posts quote the survey as saying:

Imagine if you will a world unlike any you’ve ever visited before: it’s Middle Earth, the ancient and beautiful land forged by J.R.R. Tolkien as the backdrop for his two most well known creations, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Walk as a human among dwarves, elves, orcs and hobbits—all faithfully recreated and portrayed in the spirit of the original characters as they appeared in both the books and the movies.

Well-connected entertainment industry blog Deadline reports on an emerging trend in Hollywood which is meant to cut down on leaks, but which forces many actors to jump into movies they don’t know much about: Refusing to let actors read scripts for movies they’re auditioning for, instead giving them vague descriptions. The culprit? Geeks obsessed with picking apart leaked scripts from their favorite franchise films.

MGM has been staving off bankruptcy and looking for a buyer for going on a year now, and the process has just been extended. The studio’s new deadline to either pay off its creditors or go bankrupt is September 15th.

Why is this relevant to our interests? Well, because until MGM gets its act together, it’s very unlikely that The Hobbit or the next James Bond movie will see production.

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Peter Jackson will very likely direct both parts of The Hobbit himself, according to Deadline New York. And their corroborating evidence looks solid:

[Jackson], Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens scheduled a trip to London the week of July 4, followed by a trip to Los Angeles the following week, to meet the most impressive actors who’ve been put on tape by casting directors… But if someone else was directing, wouldn’t that filmmaker be brought aboard before those casting decisions were made?

Deadline also pointed out that while several directors had expressed interest in the project, no announcement was made, perhaps indicating that Jackson was thinking over just doing the movies himself, the first choice for director, Guillermo del Toro, no longer has time to direct the many-times-delayed production.

So, Peter Jackson is going to make The Hobbit. We’re… actually kind of disappointed.

After Guillermo del Toro sadly vacated the director’s seat for The Hobbit, there was rampant speculation over what his next project would be. As we reported previously, already on his plate are Frankenstein, At The Mountains of Madness, and Slaughter-House Five, but as Universal has del Toro on contract until 2017, who knows when any of these productions will ever manifest. That said, rumors are flying around lately about another upcoming project of his that may be in the works: Van Helsing.

At the beginning of this week we were saddened by the news that Guillermo del Toro will no longer be working on The Hobbit movie. Among other things, we were really looking forward to seeing his Mirkwood, and to watching Weta Workshop‘s triumphant return to Middle Earth. But we are comforting ourselves by imagining all the other projects he is now free to pursue.

Below, we outline four of our Guillermo del Toro dream projects, and a few bonus projects that, you know, might actually happen.

In what will be seen as a heartbreaker by many fans and a major setback by the rest, Guillermo del Toro announced today that he will no longer be directing the Hobbit movie. Speaking to fan community TheOneRing.net, del Toro cited scheduling problems as his main reason for departing.

“In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming “The Hobbit,” I am faced with the hardest decision of my life”, says Guillermo. “After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures. I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I’ve been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed. The blessings have been plenty, but the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for the project. Both as a co-writer and as a director, I wlsh the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director”.

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Ian McKellen‘s, erm… quaint official site has confirmed that Guillermo del Toro‘s The Hobbit will begin filming in New Zealand this June July.

The Hobbit’s, two films, start shooting in New Zealand in June.  Filming will take over a year. Casting in Los Angeles, New York City and London has started.

Update: McKellen has since changed his webpage to read “July.”

Considering the length of the shoot (and IMDB) Part I will probably release in 2012, and the films will likely be shot at the same time, just like LotR before them.