Between lawsuits involving Peter Jackson and New Line over profits the director felt he'd been shorted and disputes over which studio controlled the rights, the prequel has been held up for a while. Apparently, that's all settled now.

They plan on making 2 Hobbit movies, though, and i don't see why. 3 LOTR books, 3 movies. 1 Hobbit book, 1 movie. I have to wait for the second movie before they fight Smaug? That's crap. Half of the book is singing. Oh god. I hope they're not going to sing in this movie. Have you seen the cartoon version? I fell asleep trying to watch it. Twice.

At the moment, Jackson is going to be executive producer, not the director. And "will be the creative font for the two films that he pitched to MGM." That's not necessarily a bad thing. Like how Joss Whedon didn't write the majority of the episodes in Buffy, but set up the direction the series should move in and it was good and there was continuity and character development. Except half of season 7 sucked. And i'm still bitter about what he did in Serenity. We should find him and punch him in the balls repeatedly. I hope Peter Jackson doesn't make the same mistake. Do you hear me Peter Jackson? I've got my eye on you!

So, yeah. The Hobbit. Live action. I hope they get Ian McKellen to play Gandalf. I like that Ian McKellen.