Air kisses around, Jackson and New Line Cinema become friends again

In typical Hollywood fashion, after a battle of words and feet stomping, New Line Cinema and director Peter Jackson have settled their litigation issues and have become friends again. What this means, of course, is that The Hobbit, the prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy that Jackson turned into an Oscar winning franchise for the small studio will now go forward.

Dark Horizons is reporting that pre-production on the film will begin very soon, with hopes of filming two Hobbit films -The Hobbit and it’s sequel- simultaneously in 2009. If all goes as planned, that would put The Hobbit in theaters for Christmas 2010, followed a year later by its sequel.

The first film will be a direct adaptation of The Hobbit, and the second would be drawn from footnotes and source material connecting The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings.