HOBBIT Casting Outreach Has Begun!! + del Toro & Mark Johnson Face HATER!!

Merrick here...
The HOBBIT part of this is more of a confirmation of what was already indicated/suspected than "news", but a piece in Variety offers a brief update on the status of matters del Toro.

Pre-production is about to get under way on the two-part "Hobbit." Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are expected to pen the scripts under the direction of Peter Jackson and del Toro. Preliminary contact has already been made with at least three actors whose "Lord of the Rings" characters also appear in the "Hobbit" storyline: Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Andy Serkis (Gollum).

...says THIS ARTICLE in Variety. The article also references a Guillermo del Toro-produced project based on David Moody's novel HATER.

The thriller is about an epidemic of random violence in which ordinary people strike lethally without warning or remorse.

del Toro will produce along side Mark Johnson, from a script by Glen Mazzara - a writer/producer on TV's THE SHIELD.