Before there can be a Hobbit movie, some legal issues need to be sorted out first. Peter Jackson said,

"I guess MGM's lawyers and New Line's lawyers are going to have a huge amount of fun over the next few years trying to work it all out... I'm obviously busy for a couple of years on 'King Kong' so those lawyers can just go at it for a long time."

Jackson said if he were going to direct the movie, he'd want it to feel like the rest of the trilogy... "I'd want Ian McKellen to be back as Gandalf, I'd want it to feel like it was part of the same mythology that we've done with 'Lord of the Rings,'" Jackson said.