Director Peter Jackson should seriously look into where he misplaced his Hollywood mojo. Even after the somewhat lacklustre "King Kong", one would have thought that the "Lord of The Rings" director had licence to mint his own money, or at least have first, second, and third right of refusal for any other films based on the works of JRR Tolkien, such as "The Hobbit".

But Jackson has been having a bad couple of weeks. Well, it began pleasently enough, back in early October, when news came through the wires that:

"Peter Jackson's phenomenal success with The Lord of the Rings trilogy makes him the first and most ideal choice for directing The Hobbit," said MGM COO Rick Sands. "MGM would be thrilled to collaborate with the Academy Award-winning director on this MGM New Line Cinema production.

And there was much rejoycing among the fans. But then things started to go a bit pear shaped.

First the video game adaption "Halo" was dropped by its studio backers, and eventually moth-balled. And now it looks like "The Hobbit" (or actually Hobbits plural, as there are plans to slip in a further, seemingly non-canonical prequel to "The Rings"), will trundle down that long road to adventure without the man who made it all possible.

New Line Cinema hold the rights to the property. And Peter Jackson's production company Wingnut Films have been in talks to produce the films, with Jackson in the director's chair. But it looks like old grudges have come between them.

Wingnut Films has been locked in a dispute with New Line over royalties the first party feels they are owed by second party from "Lord of The Rings". And, in the words of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, in a press release to TheOneRing.net:

[...]we have always said that we do not want to discuss The Hobbit with New Line until the lawsuit over New Line's accounting practices is resolved. This is simple common sense - you cannot be in a relationship with a film studio, making a complex, expensive movie and dealing with all the pressures and responsibilities that come with the job, while an unresolved lawsuit exists.

Well, it looks like New Line, whose rights won't last forever's, reply to that was less Bilbo and more Sauron...

Several years ago, Mark Ordesky told us that New Line have rights to make not just The Hobbit but a second "LOTR prequel", covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR. Since then, we've always assumed that we would be asked to make The Hobbit and possibly this second film, back to back, as we did the original movies. We assumed that our lawsuit with the studio would come to a natural conclusion and we would then be free to discuss our ideas with the studio, get excited and jump on board. We've assumed that we would possibly get started on development and design next year, whilst filming The Lovely Bones. We even had a meeting planned with MGM executives to talk through our schedule.

However last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on the Hobbit and the LOTR 'prequel'. This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects.

So, there it is. Now all the fans need is the news that New Line have lined up Brett Ratner, or Joel Schumacher to helm the films to a rocky shore, and Tolkien geeks will start dropping like flies.

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