Rights issue 'delays Hobbit film'
Found on BBC News on Saturday, 06 March 2004
Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson cannot film The Hobbit until legal problems are resolved between two movie studios, he said.
Jackson said that while New Line Cinema owns the rights to make the Lord of the Rings prequel, MGM has the rights to distribute it.
"Their lawyers are going to have a huge amount of fun over the next few years trying to work it all out," he said.
Jackson added that if he directed the Hobbit, he would like it to fit in with his Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
"I'd want Ian McKellen to be back as Gandalf, I'd want it to feel like it was part of the same mythology that we've done with Lord of the Rings."
I hope they find a solution and produce "The Hobbit"; of course with the same actors as in "Lord of the Rings". Too bad Tolkien's main works aren't equally famous. The movies could be an even bigger epos if all stories about "Middle Earth" made their way to cinemas in the chronological order. Who knows, maybe we'll see "The Silmarillion" too one day.