It's kind of confusing. MGM still holds the distrubition rights to the Hobbit. They bought all the rights off of Tolkien at the end of the sixties. But after some time, Saul Zaentz bought the rights to film the series off of MGM.
MGM had nothing to do with the LOTR series. Saentz struck a deal with film financier Bob Shaye(executive producer of the LOTR) to do the LOTR series. Question for anyone out there, does Saentz still hold the rights to The Hobbit, or did that come in the 270 million deal for LOTR series Shaye made?
I hope the fight won't take that long. They need to do it soon in the wake of the LOTR movie so they can still guarantee the characters that transcend(ie Gandalf, Gollum, Bilbo....)
Speaking of dear old Bilbo, my 111th post. Does this mean I can now disappear and go live with the elves?
