The magazine comes out this Friday; the movie it is hyping comes out in two years. Empire is featuring the still-disgusting Gollum on their cover and claims, “Gollum, Bilbo, Del Toro and Jackson: Your journey back to Middle-Earth starts here!” The magazine’s site boasts that the issue will contain an extensive interview with the ever-chatty Guillermo del Toro.

Empire Online claims that they’ve got the full scoop on the copyright issues The Hobbit faced, Peter Jackson’s problems with directing the film and del Toro’s perspective on the whole thing. This is the teaser of the del Toro interview: “Whatever The Hobbit ends up being, it has to ultimately blend seamlessly into the first movie of the trilogy. We have to respect the cosmology and the canon established by the trilogy and follow it.” Yes, you might say that respect needs to be an important issue when addressing one of the most revered sci-fi books of all time. I think fans would agree with del Toro on that one.

I guess Gollum was all they could get for the cover; with casting yet to be announced and promotional images of the movie still pending, there wasn’t anything else to display. But, did they have to give us this crotch-shot of one of the nastiest looking CGI characters ever created? Although the magazine seems to be a little over-eager for the film, I mean lets be honest, I am ready for any promotion concerning The Hobbit. Del Toro’s translation of Middle Earth is going to be at the very least phenomenally interesting. I would love to say that I am above being excited about the film this early on and that I will not buy this magazine, but that is just not true: I am psyched!