Recent talks of production delays aside, the last time we heard about "The Hobbit" it was Gandalf actor Sir Ian McKellen saying that he expected to be shooting in New Zealand by June of this year. He also mentioned that casting was underway and that the script, while not finished, was moving right along. It turns out that none of this is accurate: Producer Peter Jackson spoke up and revealed last week that, technically, the movie is still in the pitch phase.

The Academy Award-winning director/producer/writer of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy revealed as much in an interview with Moviefone last week. "Well, it's not really been delayed, because we've never announced the date," he said. "I mean, it's sort of interesting because the studio [MGM] has never greenlit 'The Hobbit,' so therefore 'The Hobbit' has never been officially announced as a 'go' project, nor have we ever announced a date."

Really, that's what Jackson and "Hobbit" director Guillermo del Toro have been saying all along. A lot of the talk about the "Rings" prequel duology has originated with the actors, from McKellen's comments about the June shoot to Hugo Weaving's talk of reprising his role as Elrond. Jackson told MTV News in December that he hopes to bring some of the original cast back for "The Hobbit," but he was quick to point out last week that there's nothing that's actually confirmed.

"Literally last week, we delivered the second of the two screenplays — the first draft," he said. "We haven't signed any actors up yet, because we couldn't do that until [the studio greenlights] the movie. ... I mean, any character that's returning from 'The Lord of the Rings,' we obviously would love the same actors to play. But even those actors haven't been approached yet, or there [haven't] been any deals done."

Now the principals are basically just waiting for the studio go-ahead. The scripts are finally out in the hands of executives and, in the interim, Jackson and del Toro are working out the scale of what they want to do.

"We're now in the process of budgeting the films," Jackson said.

"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."

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