For just a short while now, we've known that Peter Jackson and New Line finally worked there differences out and came to an agreement.  That agreement sparked up The Hobbit.  It was annoucned that Peter Jackson would produce the prequel film, The Hobbit.  It was said that it would be 2 films.  Everyone just assumed that ment The Hobbit would be split in to halfs for each film.  Plus for a time there was a rumor that Viggo Mortensen was going to return as Aragorn, but at the time it made no sense whatsoever.  The Hobbit takes place long before The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.  Looks like now, we may have the reason to all of this.  Elijah Wood spoke with MTV and revealed that both films are 2 completely seperate things.

“I haven’t spoken to him directly about it [but] I’ve e-mailed him, and as far as I know the two films that they’re doing, one will be ‘The Hobbit’ and another will take place between the 60 years that happened between ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” the once and future Frodo enthused to MTV News, possibly confirming rumors that the second planned film would not be a Part II, but instead a narrative bridge.

Wood also declared that he would love to return to the franchise and character.  "If I'm asked to go back and revisit that character and it makes sense, I would love to.  I would absolutely love to."

I LOVE THIS IDEA.  Like almost everyone else, I thought that the 2 films where simply going to be part I part II of The Hobbit.  This is a great chance to bring back the characters that we loved in LOTR.  Now on the other hand its going to be difficult to write a film from scratch, but I would assume they'll borrow source material from the books and so forth.  There is nothing in between The Hobbit and LOTR.  The fact that Jackson is on board makes me more confident that the 2nd film will keep the spirit as the others.

As of now, there isn't any director on board, but most figure its going to be Sam Raimi (Spiderman). 

Looks like I have to start reading up on the early Tolken stuff.

For more on Wood for The Hobbit, go to MTV.

-Phil