Hobbit delays?

Hey, remember how awesome it was that Peter Jackson finally resolved his differences with New Line and agreed to help develop THE HOBBIT? And that Guillermo del Toro was in line to direct an adaptation? Yeah, that was pretty awesome.

But the Tolkien estate has conveniently waited until today to say O RLY? LOTR, WTF!?! $$$, ROFL!

They’ve thrown a monkeywrench into the production gears in the form of a fat new lawsuit against New Line and their nefarious accounting department. The estate is seeking somewhere in the very respectable neighborhood of $150 million, the chunk of revenue (out of the approximately SIX BILLION the LOTR franchise has generated) that they feel they’re due but have thus far been denied.

The new HOBBIT movie and a “bridge” film cobbled from other LOTR scraps were tentatively slated to begin production next year, with releases planned for 2010 and 2011. We’ll see if the studio’s murder of lawyers can slice through this new web of entanglements, or if Smaug will remain slumbering for now. There and back again, indeed…