“The Hobbit,” the two-film, $500 million fantasy adventure

The Oscar-winning director and his crew have just begun principle photography on the “The Hobbit,” the two-film, $500 million fantasy adventure that appeared in serious jeopardy over the past year in the face of a studio fiscal crises, the defection of Guillermo del Toro, an especially nasty union dispute and Jackson’s own stressful (and stress-induced?) hospital stay.

With all of that, the first day of the shooting at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand, must have felt like a finish line for the 49-year-old Jackson,who looks fairly serene in photos posted on his new Facebook page. The Wall Street Journal quoted a chipper-sounding spokeswoman who says “the mood is really great” on the set and you can bet the good cheer will spread throughout Hollywood – “The Hobbit” promises a companion epic to Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which merely pulled in $2.9 billion in worldwide box office and that was before the 3D craze and its pricier tickets. The first of the two new films (which are indeed being shot in digital 3D) is due in theaters in late 2012, the second arrives the following year unless Orcs or MGM get in the way.