Guillermo Del Toro's Mostly Empty 'Hobbit' Update

It hardly seems possible, but we're seven years removed from the first Lord of the Rings movie, five years from the end of the trilogy, and now just a few years away from the first of two Hobbit movies. I'll pretend that you must have a certain level of familiairty with the Tolkien books, and you probably know that for the Hobbit movies, Peter Jackson is co-writing and producing while Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth) will direct. MTV caught up with Del Toro at Sundance and asked him a few questions about his progress. We learned that Del Toro has been spending a lot of time in New Zealand working on some of the technical aspects and visuals of the film, and from the sounds of it, Del Toro is happy with the progress. But kudos to the thing I can't watch anymore but grew up on when they played videos for asking some big time questions. For example, what kind of working title does the second Hobbit movie have? "I think if I told you anything right now, there's a sniper across the road," laughs Del Toro. "I am not at liberty to discuss it." And perhaps the biggest question of them all is who will play Bilbo Baggins in the LOTR prequel? Del Toro did admit he has a few names on his short list. "I can say, safely, about four. We make it a point not to talk to them...I think it's bad policy." So without saying anything, Guillermo managed to give a gracious and somehow informative interview.