Peter Jackson has revealed that The Hobbit isn't delayed because it hasn't officially been given the green light to go into production.
Ian McKellan hinted that the movie would begin shooting this summer while Andy Serkis believed it would towards the end of the year.
But Peter Jackson, who has penned the script and is acting as executive producer, admits that The Hobbit still isn't a 'go project'
Speaking to Comingsoon.net the Oscar winning filmmaker said: "Well, it’s not really been delayed, because we’ve never announced the date.
"I mean it’s sort of interesting because the studio [MGM] has never green lit ‘The Hobbit,’ so therefore ‘The Hobbit’ has never been officially announced as a 'go' project, nor have we ever announced a date.
"But there’s so much interest that people, newspapers and magazines, of their own account, say, ah, it’s likely to film in May, it’s likely to film in June, it’s likely to film in September.
"People make this stuff up. And then if it’s not filming in June, you get a story saying, ‘The Hobbit’s’ been delayed.' But it’s never actually been announced."
Despite this Jackson went on to say that he turned in the script for the movie last week: We’ve just delivered the script. Literally last week, we delivered the second of the two screenplays, the first draft.
"So the studio’s got both scripts now, which is a milestone; and if anything was holding it up, it was us doing the screenplays, because we’d just been writing as fast as we can, but it took us this long to get them finished.
"So we take whatever responsibility there is for the speed. And we’re now in the process of budgeting the films, and then hopefully we’ll get to a budget the studio [people] are happy with, and they’ll greenlight the movies and we’ll announce the shooting dates.
"I’d be pretty optimistic that we’ll be shooting before the end of the year. I would imagine October, November, we’d be shooting by. I’m not announcing it, though."
There has been no announcement as to whom will be taking on the lead role as Bilbo Baggins in the movie, it's expected that Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis will return to their role of Gandalf and Gollum.
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