Variety confirms what everyone has been suspecting already: Guillermo del Toro will be directing "The Hobbit" and its sequel for New Line Cinema and MGM. Peter Jackson and partner Fran Walsh will be exec producing along with New Line president Toby Emmerich, and Mary Parent, newly named chief of MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group.

Del Toro will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and Weta production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel dealing with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

New Line is overseeing development and will manage production.

"The Hobbit" and its sequel is slated for release in late 2011 and 2012. "The Hobbit," based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, will be filmed in New Zealand where the story is once again set in Middle-earth and focuses on Bilbo Baggins taking the Ring of Power from Gollum.