After some bad blood between “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson and New Line over—what else?—money (Jackson claimed that New Line still owed him for LoTR), the two sides are back together to make not one but two “Hobbit” movies. For fangirls like me who have been waiting for this ever since the credits rolled on the “Return of the King,” this is awesome news. The asterisk? Jackson apparently won’t be directing, because he’s already working on “The Lovely Bones” and has teamed up with Steven Spielberg to direct and produce three movies based on the Belgian comic strip “Tintin.”

It’s hard to think of “The Hobbit” and a second movie (to be conceived and written by Jackson and his creative/life partner Fran Walsh and designed to connect the dots between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring”) being directed by anyone but Jackson. But somehow, I’m not as freaked out about it as most fans seem to be. That may be because a) Jackson will still write and produce the movies and b) there are a couple of the names being thrown around as possible directors: Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro. The idea of either of them doing it is enticing–especially because as much as I loved LoTR, I recognize that all the good guys in that shiz were lilly white and all the bad guys either brown or black or wore dreadlocks (think Orcs and Haradrim, y’all). Check out the costume sketches on the DVD special features one day and you’ll find

So I’ve been sitting here trying to choose between Alfonso and Guillermo. Both have huge imaginations, have a history of collaborating with others and have plenty of fantasy experience: Alfonso did a beautiful job with “A Little Princess” and made the best Harry Potter movie to date, and Guillermo, of course rocked “Hellboy” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.” But Guillermo edges Alfonso out in my book. He’s more easygoing than Alfonso (and thus more likely to play well with Jackson, who would in effect be his boss) and has a more unbridled imagination and because he seems to have more in common with Jackson. They’re both hardcore comic-book and sci-fi/fantasy fanboys and the rotund Guillermo clearly loves food as much as Jackson used to before the radical weight loss. Can’t you just see them roaming around New Zealand barefoot (Hobbit-style, as Jackson famously used to do on the LoTR set), sandwiches in one hand, cameras in the other? Who would you pick?

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