Hurrah for the Hobbit!

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After months of bitter legal wrangling,

Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema and

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Studios Inc have agreed to

make two movies based on the book

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien.

(Alas, Peter no longer looks like a hobbit!)

In a statement Tuesday, the companies said Jackson, the director of the smash hit "Lord of the Rings" movies, and producer Fran Walsh will executive produce both a "Hobbit" movie and a sequel, but Jackson was not named as the director.
"We don't have a director yet," said a New Line spokeswoman.
The movies will be made simultaneously starting in 2009, and a tentative release date has been set for 2010 for the first film and 2011 for the second.
MGM and New Line, a unit of Time Warner Inc, will co-finance the films, with New Line distributing them in the United States and MGM internationally.
MGM is a closely held company owned by several private equity firms and media divisions of Sony Corp and Comcast Corp.
Science fiction fantasy "The Hobbit" tells of a world inhabited by wizards, dwarfs, elves and little people called hobbits, who include the central character, Bilbo Baggins.
"The Hobbit" preceded Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" books, which were made into smash hit movies by New Line, starting with 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."
Combined with two sequels -- "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" -- the three took in roughly $3 billion at global box offices.
The final movie, "Return of the King," won Oscars for best movie and best director for Jackson. But the director later sued New Line, claiming the studio had improperly accounted for the movie's profits and owed Jackson money.
That suit has now been settled, allowing movies based on "The Hobbit" to go into development, with Jackson attached and with MGM, which owned film rights to "The Hobbit," as part of the team.
"I'm very pleased that we've been able to put our differences behind us, so that we may begin a new chapter with our old friends at New Line," Jackson said in a statement.
(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte; editing by Gerald E. McCormick)