Jackson lost weight.

I was under the impression, based on a Charlie Rose interview with Jackson that he's had a massive falling out with the people at New Line over money from LOTR and that's why he's not doing The Hobbit.

The first Hellboy film is underrated, I think and the second will be good too. He collaborates very closely with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola* which shows that he's willing to be faitful to source material. The casting is perfect and apparently Del Toro had to really fight for it with the studio, so that's a very good quality he brings to the Hobbit job.

*If you can find it, I highly recommend renting the DVD of Amazing Screw-On Head . It's a short animated film by Mignola (and others, of course) based on Mignola's comic. It was meant as a pilot to a Sci-Fi channel series, but it never got picked up, which is a shame because its one of the most delightfully fucked up animated stories I've ever seen. The titular character, voiced by Paul Giamati, is a sort of secret agent/superhero living during the American Civil War. He has one head but many different bodies, each suited to a particular kind of mission. He reports directly to Abraham Lincoln. The villain Emperor Zombie, voiced by David Hype Peirce, absorbs victims knowledge by smoking them in a big bong thingy.