Hobbit, Crown, Panther and Bond News

So, MGM sells to Sony, gives its home entertainment titles to Fox, and then revamps for a major surge as news out of Variety includes new information on such titles as James Bond 22, The Pink Panther, Thomas Crown 2 and the two-part adaptation of “The Hobbit.”

Information came out of the world premiere of Casino Royale in London in which MGM chief Harry Sloan highlighted the titles I just mentioned. As for what is likely to hustle up into production you are looking at the sequel to Casino Royale, the sequel to The Pink Panther and the follow-up to 1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair.

Now, for what you are probably here for, and news that really changes my earlier stand… The two-part adaptation of “The Hobbit” is still in the works. Granted, this is not a greenlight situation, it is a situation in which Sloan confirmed that MGM was in talks with Peter Jackson to make two movies based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s “prequel” to “The Lord of the Rings.” The two-part thing is what scared me at first, but it isn’t that they are turning “The Hobbit” into two parts, “The Hobbit” would be the first part while the second part would be drawn from “footnotes and source material connecting ‘The Hobbit’ with ‘The Lord of the Rings,'” Sloan said.

While the idea is much more intriguing I am still unsure if we need a “Hobbit” movie. Let’s just leave things as they are, look at the debacle Star Wars turned into. Yeah, it earned a lot of money as would The Hobbit, but I think we all know the prequels are all flawed on countless levels.

The final note in the article was the final nail in the Rocky coffin as Sloan said the upcoming Rocky Balboa will probably be the last installment in that franchise, because Sylvester Stallone’s title character will be too old for the ring. We’ll see soon if that sentiment rings true now just as much as it would then.

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