Jackson and Raimi Headed for Middle Earth

By Katey Rich

Lord of the Rings fans who have already worn out their special edition box sets can rejoice: Peter Jackson is finally set to start making a movie version of The Hobbit. Jackson and New Line have been squabbling in the form of a lawsuit over money he was owed for the LOTR trilogy-- I guess when your movie makes $3 billion, you reconsider the deal you made back when you were a New Zealander nobody had ever heard of.

The plan is to make two movies out of The Hobbit, which is a prequel to the events of LOTR starring Frodo's uncle Bilbo Baggins and our old friend Gollum/Smeagol. Jackson doesn't plan to direct the film, which might send some fanboys into a tizzy, but his old friend Sam Raimi has been looking to step into the director's chair. Jackson and his producing partner Fran Walsh will act as what will likely be very active executive producers.

Raimi, of course, is the man who turned Tobey Maguire into Spiderman, not to mention bringing us Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. It's difficult to really predict how his influence will be seen in a world that will almost certainly look and feel just like Jackson's Middle Earth. The first film will be the story told in The Hobbit, while the second will fill the gap in time between the end of Bilbo's adventures and the beginning of Frodo's. I thought we covered most of that ground back in Fellowship of the Ring, but as we all know, there's no limit to what people will rush to find out about Middle Earth.

The movies likely won't go into production until 2009, since obviously a script can't be written yet, so it's hard to know if in 2011 people will be hankering for a new Middle Earth adventure the way they are now. For my part, though, I'm ready. No one has done fantasy the way Jackson did before or since, and even if he's not directly behind the camera I trust him and Raimi to capture the old magic. And especially for New Line's sake, as they struggle to figure out exactly how they can make money without hobbits, I want this to succeed. They did a great thing by taking a risk on Jackson before, and reining him in as their cash cow will hopefully let them take more thrilling risks like that, instead of, you know, Austin Powers 4 or something like that.