The Hobbit On Hold
Flea of Pain writes "Director Guillermo Del Toro has confirmed upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit has been put on hold indefinitely because the movie has been caught in a 'tangled negotiation' over the future of the MGM movie studio. The film, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's first book in the fantasy series, was reportedly due to begin shooting this summer, but has been mired in delays. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, who will act as producer on the new film, recently dismissed rumors of trouble with the picture, insisting, 'It's not really been delayed, because we've never announced the date.'"
Now what will I do?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Bond 23 has also been delayed because of MGM's legal issues. http://www.imdb.com/news/ni2143090/
I was looking forward to seeing Mr. Craig shoot some guns, drive some fast cars, and flirt with some girls.
Given Jackson's track record with LOTR the Hobbit movies are worth a couple billion dollars in revenue. There is absolutely no possibility they won't get made. There have been several fits of "on hold" while the rights were negotiated with the Tolkiens. There will be more "on hold" moments while more parties wrangle for their cut. In the end it will make it to the screen because everyone, absolutely everyone, wants this.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
however, jackson did a good job with the trilogy.
Elf shield surfing.
Dwarf tossing jokes.
Rewriting parts of the story to make it 'more exciting'.
Let's just say that he did ok, hmmm?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The US adopted the Berne convention in 1988, according to which:- "One important minimum rule was that the term of copyright was to be a minimum of the author's lifetime plus 50 years."
According to Wikipedia, Tolkien died in 1973, that plus 50 years means that it'll be 2023 before the copyright expires.