Director Guillermo del Toro is well aware of all the rumors circulating around his new film The Hobbit, and now he's put the rumors to rest. The director spoke out on TheOneRing.net's message board forums, and revealed some new information like the film's new director of photography - Guillermo Navarro - and that they are not aiming at filming The Hobbit in 3-D. Here's the filmmaker's post on the site's message boards.

As a co-writer and director of this film (who works with the design teams, costume teams, creature teams, VFX teams every day of the week), let me be very clear one more time: we are not talking about 3D, we are NOT writing the screenplay for 3D right now- we are hiring my DoP Guillermo Navarro to shoot the film and we are not discussing 3D with him either or with WETA digital or WB or anyone else. That should be a little less sidestepping, I hope. If after Avatar the market may change and demands are put upon us, etc that is in the future. But if such things happen and we start discussing 3D down the line, I'll let it be know here at TORN because that's the proper way of doing things. But make no mistake- I've been living in NZ for almost a year now and we have not been discussing 3D.When we do, I'll make sure your source finds out. Thank You, Guillermo.

The director also went on to dispel certain casting rumors and talked about the 3-D format in general on the site as well.

...is dead-on about the imminent conversion of film into an expanding 3-D field - at least in most blockbusters and I know of, at least, 4 or 5 major filmmakers preparing 3D films right now. Some of them seriously artistic and ungimmicky!! I've seen Avatar and I was absolutely blow away by it!! I myself expect to explore 3D soon enough- it is the future, just not my immediate future. And no- neither David Tennant nor Tom Cruise are Bilbo and we are not redesigning Gollum.

We'll be sure to update you with any and all updates on The Hobbit as soon as we have more information.