After The Lord of the Rings film trilogy made over a billion dollars worldwide, one had to expect Hollywood would look to other J.R.R. Tolkein works to cash in on. There isn’t anything better than his pre-Rings novel, The Hobbit. New Line Cinema, who did the Rings films and owns the rights to The Hobbit had been hoping to get Rings director Peter Jackson at the helm. However, they have been in a nasty fued over money distribution for some time now. Relations are so bad between the two that New Line said Jackson would never have anything to do with The Hobbit or New Line again.

Rumors have swirled for months that Sam Raimi of the Spider-Man trilogy was being asked to step in and direct. Nothing against Raimi, but I don’t think he’s the director for a film like this. So, who is? Well, Ain’t It Cool News reported that Peter Weir is the latest name attached to this director rumor mill. Personally, I think he would be perfect. Weir is an intelligent, very skilled director that always get the best performances out his actors as well as turning uninteresting storylines into very good films. Can you say Master and Commander? At the moment, there isn’t much credence to Weir being courted. Maybe this rumor will get the ball rolling, though.

Read the original story from AICN here.
Read about the history of The Hobbit here.
Read about Peter Weir here.