When asked at the premier for The Lovely Bones about the Hobbit movie. "We were due to deliver the scripts and be shooting sometime around April and now I think I said in an interview we were shooting in June. And somehow people are now saying the film is delayed. As far as I am aware, they are not delayed at all. I am not even sure when we are going to start shooting… we are delivering the scripts just after Christmas they'll be finished and we'll be shooting as soon as we possibly can. But you need a certain amount of time to finish the pre-production."
Jackson was then asked if part one of the saga would still hit in December 2011, he said "At this stage, that is certainly the plan. Yeah."
Thank you IGN.com for the news