The Hobbit in July 2007?

[Brinniel]

Who directed the three highest-grossing films in your history and brought home a truckload of Oscars in the process? Oh yeah, that fat guy from New Zealand.

Except you can't call PJ the "fat guy" anymore...

I mentioned before that it looks like New Line is aiming for 2009, but I seriously doubt that will happen. It took years to get LotR going, and with this ongoing battle, it'll take even longer to even get The Hobbit started.

As far as we know, the director and screenwriters (indeed, two very important parts) won't be the same, but I'm not going to guess on everyone else. I don't think most of the other crew member wouldn't participate in The Hobbit just because PJ isn't involved- if they don't participate, it'll be for other reasons. New Line would just be stupid not to bring back a single crew or cast member into the project. I feel confident that some will return. For one thing, there is no other team except WETA who can portray Gollum the same. And they can't animate Gollum without Andy Serkis (Gollum may be CGI, but his looks and personality come from Serkis). Gollum is an important character of The Hobbit, and if he doesn't come close to what he was in LotR, this movie will be a disaster for sure. New Line kicked PJ and Fran off the project, but no one else. I won't believe for a second that no one else in the cast and crew would return to work on The Hobbit until someone shows me some actual evidence.