When it was reported earlier this week that The Hobbit had been greenlit as two movies and that Peter Jackson would produce many people in our comments section said they were holding out hope that Jackson would eventually decide to direct himself. He's now stated, through his manager, that this will not happen.
Jackson's rep, Ken Kamins, told Entertainment Weekly "Peter won't be directing because he felt the fans have waited long enough for The Hobbit. It will take the better part of every day of the next four years to write, direct and produce two Hobbit films. Given his current obligations to both The Lovely Bones and Tintin, waiting for Peter, Fran, and Phillippa to write, direct and produce The Hobbit would require the fans wait even longer."
While some will inevitably be crushed that the director of the original trilogy has definitely counted himself out of the running to shoot it, we have great faith that his passion for the story will mean that whoever is chosen will be given the job based on a similar passion and ability to make something that lives up to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and keeps Jackson's philosophy of putting the fans and the story before the studio. Names currently floating around include Sam Raimi, Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron. While any of those would doubtless do a terrific job, we'd love to see the honour go to Del Toro, whose Pan's Labyrinth shows that he has exactly the right skills to balance fantasy, war and multiple story strands. Also, he'll make it look pretty.