Have Hope, Nerds, Eagles Are Coming

It looks like MGM and New Line Cinema are going to go forward with a movie adaptation of The Hobbit and they're going to ask Peter Jackson to be in charge. How cool is that?

I read an interview with Peter Jackson a few weeks back where he said that he would be interested but hadn't been asked yet. His only demand would be to get Ian McKellen to play Gandalf. Jackson also expressed concern that the clock was ticking since he has filled up his schedule for the next few years making his own movies.

Hopefully all of this will get worked out. It looked impossible just a few years ago with the rights to any Hobbit movie split between two warring studios, but they've decided to go 50-50. So if Jackson and company can be reunited then the movie could happen.

My two cents: The Hobbit is serious tale in the form of a children's story. My suggestion would be to have Bilbo retell the story, thru flashbacks, to a group of young hobbits (including Frodo?). That way the humorous and inconsistent parts can be reconciled as Bilbo's own invention as he edited the events for the ears of young listeners. The new movie could then be true to the source material as well as the other movies. At least that's how I would do it.