Guillermo del Toro Directing The Hobbit… And Sequel?

Executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have confirmed what has been rumored for a while now. Director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) will direct the movie adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. He will also be directing an unnamed sequel.
Image via Wikipedia
Del Toro will spend the next four years in New Zealand working with Peter Jackson's Wingnut and Weta production teams and directing the two movies back to back. The movies will be overseen by New Line Cinema and are being co-produced and financed by MGM with Warner Bros. distributing in the US and MGM handling international distribution. The target date for the movies is 2011 and 2012.

The Hobbit was written by Tolkien as a children's story and was published in 1937. Set 60 years before the events chronicled in The Lord of the Rings, the story follows a young Bilbo Baggins as he sets out with a party of dwarves to steal treasure from the dragon Smaug. So long as they allow for the fact that the material is aimed at a younger audience I think this should turn into an excellent movie.

I'm a little more alarmed at the notion of a "sequel" to The Hobbit though. Tolkien never wrote any sequels to that story and while as noted there is some 60 years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I'm really not at all sure what sort of story they plan on telling.