Petition to make The Hobbit

There is a petition drive going on with the purpose of encouraging Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists and New Line Cinema to do a deal so The Hobbit can be made into a live action film. The reason these two studios have to do a deal is because MGM/UA owns the distribution rights to any version of The Hobbit that is made. Conversely, New Line owns the rights to make a film version of The Hobbit. I have no idea how Hollywood came up with such a mess. To make matters worse, Sony Corporation acquired MGM/UA and Peter Jackson filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema. Still, Jackson has said he's willing to make The Hobbit and if enough fans press the studios to do a deal then, we may see it done before we're old and crochety. The petition has over 34,000 signatures so far. If you'd like to add your name to the list, the petition can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/hobfilm. The webpage also supplies names and addresses of the studio execs that you can write to urging them to do a deal. I normally don't write studio executives but, I plan to in this case. I really want to see Jackson make a live version of The Hobbit. As a confirmed Middle-Earth junkie, the Lord of the Rings films simply aren't enough. Plus, time spares no one and I very much want to see Sir Ian McKellen play Gandalf and Hugo Weaving play Elrond again. I have doubts about Sir Ian Holm playing Bilbo. Sir Ian was a fantastic older Bilbo but, I have doubts as to how well he can play a younger version. I would welcome any comments from you on this. Cheers!