The Hobbit film trilogy

The Hobbit could potentially become a live action film in the near future.

Film
Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh expressed interest in 1995 in adapting J. R. R. Tolkien's novels. Jackson's pitch was to film The Hobbit, and shoot The Lord of the Rings back-to-back afterward. They met with Saul Zaentz, who bought the film rights to The Lord of the Rings from MGM in the 1970s. However, frustration arose when Jackson's producer, Harvey Weinstein learnt Zaentz had production rights to The Hobbit, but distribution rights still belonged to United Artists. U.A. was on the market, so Weinstein's attempts to buy those rights were unsuccessful. Weinstein asked Jackson to press on with adapting The Lord of the Rings.

Eight years later, New Line Cinema had produced The Lord of the Rings film trilogy after Miramax Films left when they wanted to condense the two planned Rings films into one. However, New Line has a limited time option on The Hobbit. MGM holds the distribution rights to The Hobbit, and expressed interest in teaming up with New Line and Jackson to make the film in September 2006. MGM also expressed interest in another prequel film, set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

In March 2005, Jackson launched a lawsuit against New Line, claiming he had lost revenue from merchandising, video and computer games releases associated with The Fellowship of The Ring. New Line co-founder Robert Shaye was annoyed with the lawsuit, and said in January 2007 that Jackson would never again direct a film for New Line, accusing Jackson of being greedy. MGM was disappointed with New Line's decision.Sam Raimi expressed interest in taking over the project. In August 2007, after a string of flops, Shaye was trying to repair his working relationship with Jackson. Shaye said, "I really respect and admire Peter and would love for him to be creatively involved in some way in The Hobbit."