WHat?!!?? From the IMDB:

Jackson Kicked Off 'The Hobbit' In Fit of Pique, Says Report

New Line Cinema notified Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson that he would not be involved in the production of The Hobbit and another LOTR prequel after Jackson declined to contribute a video salute to the studio for its 40th anniversary celebration next year, the New York Times reported today (Wednesday), citing two people familiar with the matter. Jackson and New Line are locked in a legal dispute over profits from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The Times said that Jackson's camp has accused the studio of dropping him from the prequels "in a fit of pique." Meanwhile, a spokesman for MGM which owns distribution rights to The Hobbit, told the Times. "We support Peter Jackson as a filmmaker, and believe that when the dust settles, he'll be making the movie. We can't imagine any other result."

There are rumors going around that PJ will make The Hobbit for Tolkein Enterprises when the film rights revert back to them.

EDIT: [link]

If that's true, say goodbye to New Line making a profit if they produce an alternate version before that happens.

It all makes New Line seem particularly boneheaded.

ION, Vampire Movie!

Huh, and here I thought their "fit of pique" was due to him, you know, suing them.

Paramount, Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox are expected to join Warner Bros. in providing movies over the Internet via BitTorrent, the video web service that they once universally scorned, the Los Angeles Times Times reported today (Wednesday). As part of the deal, BitTorrent has agreed to use filtering software to prevent pirated content from going out over its service. However, the newspaper indicated, analysts generally believe that the switch-over from an outlet for pirated versions of movies to one where users must pay a fee to receive them is likely to fail; it noted that similar Internet-based movie-download services are struggling. Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, told the Times: "The problem is consumers are not convinced that paying for and downloading video is worth it. ... The other problem is it doesn't end up on the TV set. The mechanisms that do get it to the TV, like DVD burning, are not quite what they need to be." Meanwhile, Wal-Mart on Tuesday launched a new service that allows anyone who buys a DVD copy of certain features to download a copy of it onto their computer or portable digital device. The additional charge will be $2-4 dollars.

Quick!

Who are your favorite character actors? Let's go for batches of three like:

1) Eve Arden
2) Warren Oates
3) Chris Penn

David Straithran. Lili Taylor Eva Gardner

Cuddles Szakall
Ruth Hussey
Frank Morgan

My list:
Vincent Schiavelli
Tracey Walter
Jeffrey Wright
(with bonus status for Kathy Bates)

Fela's list:
Parker Posey
Ian McKellen
Forrest Whitaker