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Since Jackson and Walsh posted a letter to the fans, they clearly think that they've been wronged by the big evil corporate Studio Jerks, and the fans will agree with them.

Probably, but as David points out this is not so cut and dry. I agree with his assesment that it's an ugly divorce and shouldn't be rooted for, and I also agree that as a Rings fan I'm not exactly dying for a "Hobbit" movie or other prequel. Mainly because that source material is much weaker than the other books. And even fans are very "Rings-ed out" by this point.

And Lucas gained a lot of weight after "Star Wars", Jackson has lost a lot of weight. Symbolically it could mean that he does not want to follow Lucas's footsteps. Joy!

New Line should have snagged Guillermo del Toro before the Hellboy 2 deal. Now they're racing against the clock before the Limited Time Option on the film rights expire.

A classic case of greed and sloth.

I'm pretty gleeful and anyone who gets all torn up over this can fuck off.

I'm devastated. A Jackson-helmed Hobbit could have been fantastic. And I'd rather see no Hobbit movie than one by someone else. Something I respect: Jackson's letter exudes a passion for his work, above and beyond the business of filmmaking. I agree with David that the heartbreak of separation from their baby is very evident. In their shoes, I hope I would make the same decision.

New Line's guilt or innocence is essentially irrelevant for the fans, like me. We don't know the books. But if they *believe* they're getting shafted, that's what matters, and if New Line wasn't completely stupid, they'd figure out a way to make them happy: if not to settle, at least to expedite the audit process.

You know what I think happened? I hope it's not just wishful thinking, but it makes some sense. I think New Line tried to bluff Jackson/Walsh by trying to tie The Hobbit to the lawsuit like a dangling carrot. I bet they were just outright shocked when they didn't bite, and now they're in the position of having to follow through or recant.

Who knows what they'll do, but I'll tell you one thing: The Hobbit without Jackson will probably make money, but not nearly the truckloads The Hobbit *with* Jackson will.

It seems like hardball, and one would hope that New Line could eat crow and decide to respond by making nice. I'm sure, though, that they're already running numbers on how much more they could make on Jackson's The Hobbit vs. how much they would have to pay out in the licensing deal, and whichever figure is greater is the one they'll go with.

Thank god we're not going to see a grim, grimy 3.5 hour version of The Hobbit. Since The Hobbit is a children's book, Jackson's increasingly bloated and sentimental sensibilty is completely wrong for the project. Great news.

^ Agreed.

Considering Jackson wanted to split The Hobbit up into two films, I think we would have had a seven-hour Hobbit by the time the extended editions came out.

First!

DP touched on one point that everyone should play close attention to: the loyalty of the cast is what's going to prevent this from being made. I seriously doubt that either Ian McKellen or Ian Holm (are there others) will agree to make a film for a company that screwed over their friends and former collaborators. If they try to go for younger actors to play these roles...I don't think anyone's going to bite,

Really the hook here would be Gandalf Is Back, and without that recognizeable face they will be cutting their profits in half.

What's Renny Harlin up to these days?

Ian Holm is already too old for young Bilbo. Ian McKellen's robust appearance in X-Men 3 shows that he's not necessarily afraid of hamming it up with a hack in the director's chair.

This move is really a blessing in disguise. New Line should lure Alfonso Cuarón, who did the best Potter movie, to make The Hobbit. Or a similarily imaginative director.

Ian Holm could never have played Bilbo in The Hobbit. He was too old to play young Bilbo five years ago, and he's even older now.

I love The Lord of the Rings films, but I wasn't really itching for a Hobbit film. Well at least not two of 'em. I don't think it was Jackson's idea to make two anyhow. I think that idea came from New Line.

It does seem that New Line was bluffing a bit and Jackson called them on it. It'll be interesting to see what happens next. I think it's good for Jackson to walk away from the world of Middle Earth though - and all that entails.

I'd see a Jacksonless Hobbit probably, but I wouldn't be expecting it to be in the same realm as the LOTR. Even with a different and just as talented director. But who knows? It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes down in the coming weeks + months.

Since when was Jackson bigger than Middle Earth, let alone Tolkien?

Since when is . . .

I'm 46. The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy were a huge part of my teen years. When my son, now 18, was about 8, I read him The Hobbit and LOTR out loud. The books became a huge part of his life. His first essay in high school started by saying how one of the most important events in his life was the first night I sat down to read him LOTR. We went to all three films at midnight and then went out to breakfast. He went to school to brag he had already seen them. I went to bed and got up to see the noon showing.

My whole life I wanted to see a movie of LOTR. When I heard it was finally being done I was thrilled but apprehensive. How could it possibly live up my expectations?

Well, PJ and his team delivered. From the opening moments of FOTR, they nailed it. Millions of similarly obsessed people found the rendering of Hobbiton perfect. PJ had earned our trust. He made some changes to the story but we didn't care. He earned the right to make those changes.

What I fear now is that whoever makes the next films, if they are ever made, won't have the credibility. They certainly won't have the love for source material that PJ et al have. Maybe more important, will they have WETA to to create Middle Earth?

I don't need to see any more Tolkien films. But I'd love to. And there is massive amounts of material to make more than one film. However, as a fan, what upsets me about this saga is that this is PJ's project. No one else. NL should be able to see that.

I think it's pretty same to assume that no Jackson = no WETA.

"A guy to his head"?

Er, Dave, is this... oh, I don't want to ask.

The thing that gets me the most about the letter is how New Line is throwing away one of the most profitable franchise ever over a lawsuit. I don't really understand what the lawsuit was about (can anyone please explain? thanks) but still, I'm sure they will gain much more from Hobbit and the prequel to LOTR Jackson talked about. I do miss having something to look forward to at the end of the year. I remember thinking when the Return of the King came out and there wouldn't be another. And yes there's Harry Potter, but it's not the same. Spider-man, as much as I love both films, doesn't have the same epic, grand feelling about them. I don't really care about another Tokien movie, but after reading the heart-breaking letter, I now do care officially. And I will be very disappointed if NL will have another director do the movie. NL will be slaughtered by the media and the fans, me included although I'm not a fan. I do hope NL will swallow their words and talk to Jackson again. IT's business. Pride and saving face shouldn't be on their agenda.

All you people who think another director could do better with Middle Earth...well, you're completely deluded. Be snide about the length of the movies all you want, but shorter versions wouldn't have worked.

Look, I know it's fashionable to backlash against big success, but when it's automatic and unthinking, it's just stupid. We're all forgetting something: Middle Earth is unfilmable. Lord of the Rings cannot possibly be adapted onto the screen and be any good at all. Tolkien's work is too inherently tied to the printed word. And yet, amazingly, we have three absolutely brilliant epic screen entertainments. By rights, they should not exist. Middle Earth *is* essentially unfilmable. Somehow, Jackson/Walsh/Boyens figured out a way to bring the spirit of the novels to the screen in a way that was supremely entertaining, a grand and visceral spectacle, but plot- and character-oriented all the way through. I can accept that some didn't like them, but, trust me, those people would like some other random director's efforts a lot less.

If you'd prefer to wanna roll the dice and take your chances with a new director, you either don't care about the movies in the first place (in which case, butt out), or you're just not thinking clearly. Cuaron? Sure, yeah, I can conceive that he'd *maybe* pull something together. But you're just as likely to get Michael Bay or Renny Harlin or Tim Story or freaking McG. Or any number of actually talented directors whose styles are just all wrong: Tim Burton, I dunno, you name it. Don't make the mistake of New Line, which David reminds us is behaving very much like a corporation in all this, won't see more dollar signs in front of Brett Ratner's name than the guy who directed the Harry Potter episode with the smallest box office take.

In short, "The Hobbit"'s chances as a movie revert back to those of Lord of the Rings in the late 90s, namely: virtually no chance at all.

You don't win the lottery twice in a lifetime. Keep Jackson, or don't bother.

"And yet, amazingly, we have three absolutely brilliant epic screen entertainments."

No, we don't. There's only one that fits that description: the first one. Then we have an absolutely abysmal exercise in over-indulgence and tedium, followed by an absolutely adequate conclusion.

Samwise, your outraged emotional catharsis is charming, but misplaced. I liked Lord of the Rings (in fact, The Two Towers is one of my top five movies of the past five years). But just because Jackson hit that ball out of the park doesn't mean he'd do The Hobbit justice. The Hobbit is a kid's story and has none of the grandeur or depth of Lord of the Rings. In fact, it's kind of dopey. Charming, but dopey.

Additionally, King Kong was one of the most misbegotten and self-indungent sequels in recent memory. I shudder at the idea of Jackson, with final cut, applying the same kind of cinematic vision to a charming kid's fantasy like The Hobbit. I mean, seriously. Step away from the pipeweed and think about this logically.

Wreck is spot on. The Peter Jackson of "King Kong" should be allowed nowhere near "The Hobbit." At least, not within 50 AUs of it.

ya didn't believe me about the Fox lawsuits and look, they have releases and everyone is screwed.

Peter Jackson will direct the Hobbit.

"I can accept that some didn't like them, but, trust me, those people would like some other random director's efforts a lot less."

How can you be so sure? Be reminded of directors who brought well-loved franchises to the silver screen despite a multitude of naysayers: Bryan Singer, Sam Raimi, even Peter Jackson himself. It's easy to imagine that they couldn't have done it before you see the final cut; I suspect many detractors had their favourites in mind.

Now Jackson's made a name for himself, but he doesn't have the exclusive power of adapting Tolkien's stories well. And like other commenters have mentioned, The Hobbit is a different ballgame from LOTR anyway, so I don't see why we must stick with one writer-director's vision.

And yet, Bryan Singer's most recent attempt at a franchise didn't exactly work out all that well, either.

Blackcloud, how do you reconcile your and Wrecktum's thoughts on The Two Towers, if you do?

this is bad, bad news... :(

Just to state: I am a huuuuuge Tolkien fan (for years now), and was one of the people highly sceptical about it being turned into a film (no matter how I was dying to see such a project). And allthough I spent the beginning of the first movie nitpicking (Arwen to the rescue anyone? yikes!!!), I was rapidly converted by the magic of the whole project.

For better or worse Middle Earth is now (almost) as closely associated to Jackson & co as it is to Tolkien in the minds of most of the public... I don't think a non-Jackson Hobbit film would be as big a success; especially if they couldn't bring in Ian McKellen! (there is no other Gandalf possible!) Ian Holm could *I suppose* still play Bilbo, if you remember from the books "he didn't look a day past 50" (or something like that) precisely because of the ring... but of course the longer this is put off the lower the chances of that happening.

The Hobbit may have been a children's book, but it's a damn scary one at that!!! Trolls, Goblins, Gollum and the Dragon? Fighting over treasure? Death and destruction? Peter Jackson would do just fine!!! I'd rather a 3h movie than than 2 separate movies. I don't see how you could split that story in two.

I'll admit to being curious to that second film talked about... between the Hobbit and Rings? There isn't much source material for it... most of Tolkien's remaining writings on Middle Earth concern the Silmarillion (bad guy = Morgoth) and the Numenoreans (rise of Sauron).

The SILMARILLION... now there's another epic tale to be told!!! ;o)

oops! looks like I wrote the beginning of a thesis there! sorry about that! (but can you tell how nuts I am about this world?) ;o)

"Blackcloud, how do you reconcile your and Wrecktum's thoughts on The Two Towers, if you do?"

I don't think they can be reconciled, but that's the nature of aesthetic judgements. I think Two Towers is terrible, and Wreck believes the opposite. But we'll always not have King Kong!

I think it maybe unfair to draw parallels between what is generally accepted as a poor attempt for PJ on King Kong and what we might expect if he did indeed to any more Tolkien related films.

One thing clear from all the coverage of LOTR is that PJ loved the matrieal and was meticulous about how it was turned into a film. I am sure he loved KK as well but maybe the success of LOTR did go to his head. I am very confident that any future Tolkien films coming from PJ would be more consistent with what we saw in the LOTR trilogy than KK. In other words, PJ seems like a good guy and one who learns his lessons.

That argument won't help those who didn't like the LOTR films in the first place but maybe it helps those folks understadn where those of us who came form the books and loved the films are coming from.

FWIW, I liked films 1 and 3 the best. I have no complaints over film 2 just a preference for the others. I especially liked two scenes in ROTK. First, the scene where Faramir is charging to what seems like certain death while Denethor is eating and Pippin is singing. Brilliant. And that wasn't even in the books.

Second, the charge of the Rohirrim into the Battle of Pelenor Fields. When Theoden is shouting orders and then riding down the line right through to teh charge itself. Very emotional stuff that really captures the sacrifice these folks are making to save Middle Earth. Great stuff, far better than how it reads.

I think those two scenes show why book fans are so comfortable with PJ and fear another director. On the one hand, he invented something that didn't take place and it made the film better. On the other hand, he took the book to another level.

Spam - It had nothing to do with not believing you... the problem is you throw obviousness at the wall and of course, it might stick.

What you never got was that Fox's vulnerability on the Borat stuff was political not legal.

And the situation here is personal, not legal.

That doesn't mean Walsh/Jackson may not come back. But there is a lot of repair work to be done first that has NOTHING to do with the legal wrangling itself.

but maybe you should tell us again about Iron Man sucking... you have about an 85% shot of being right, even if you have no info at all. Ghost Rider, 90%.

Why are we assuming that Jackson would adapt The Hobbit in the same vast epic style that Lord of the Rings is? Tolkien wrote them both, and they turned out stylistically very different. Is it that inconceivable that Jackson could adapt them both without using the exact same style?

Jackson's filmography prior to Lord of the Rings includes: Heavenly Creatures, a tight, subtle drama with a dark undercurrent; Braindead, an absurdly over-the-top slasher with a sense of humor; Forgotten Silver, a mockumentary about a classic filmmaker; and The Frighteners, a special effects comedy. Are THOSE all done in the same sort of style as Lord of the Rings?

On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd be that averse to an adaptation of The Hobbit that *does* skew it into something more like what Lord of the Rings is. We have the book. No movie will change it. So why can't a movie do something a little different with it? Sacrilege to say so? Maybe -- I think I'd prefer a movie to stick to the lower key, fable-like feel of the book than the epic-like feel of LotR. I'm just saying artistic license isn't inherently a bad thing if you take it.

Man, I feel like the only one who thinks Jackson is just about the most overrated director ever, and the the LOTR trilogy was a geekfest of over-zealous special effects that made very part of the film seem the same...and KING KONG was a piece of garbage...I couldn't care less where who finances his overblown toy stores...

I did have high hopes that he would make a masterpiece out of THE LOVELY BONES, because I do think HEAVENLY CREATURES was a great film...

Also, I hardly think New Line screwed over anyone...it's a business deal, Jackson got rich off of it...and famous...and very very rich...I'm not sure any of us citizens will every understand what went down...

I think something that isn't completely clear is that the plan wasn't for two movies of The Hobbit. The first would basically cover The Hobbit, while the second was conceptualized as a prequel to FotR.

For those who know the books (or, really, the appendices), you know this could cover any number of stories, from Aragorn's youth and romance with Arwen to his travels, the Dunedain rangers, the situation with Saruman in Rohan, Denethor in Gondor, more of the backstory on Boromir, Faramir and Denethor, etc., etc. There was a huge amount going on during that time period.

I think this whole thing is very sad. New Line can go one of two directions -- they either hire someone who will try to make Middle-earth look and feel like Jackson's Middle-earth, without any vision of their own, which is doomed to fail. Or they hire someone who would bring a unique vision, and then the audience, who will expect the Middle-earth they met in the LotR films, will find something totally different.

If LotR hadn't been made, I'd be interested in seeing what Cuaron or Guillermo del Toro or Paul Greengrass or Baz Luhrmann or any number of other talented directors might do with Middle-earth -- but that's not what I want *now*. I want Rivendell to look as it looked in FotR. I want Howard Shore's music. I want the same actors (as far as the age-thing makes it reasonable).

I really don't know how New Line thinks it's possibly better off this way. They are completely delusional.

The only bright spot, as far as I'm concerned, is that Jackson & Co. might move on to the Temeraire novles sooner rather than later. The sensibility of those books is uniquely suited to Jackson and Walsh's style of integrating fantasy elements into a world that feels real.

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