Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have finally kissed and made up. And that means that there will be a big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit after all. A two-part movie to be shot simultaneously, in fact.

The studio announced the good news today. Jackson will produce but it’s not yet clear whether he will direct.

Let’s hope they can get Ian McKellen (kindly wizard Gandalf), Ian Holm (reluctant adventurer Bilbo Baggins) and Hugo Weaving (wise elf Elrond) to reprise their roles from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And John Rhys-Davies could easily play Gloin, the father of his dwarf character Gimli in the previous outing. Beyond that, they could start with a blank casting slate and still make a go of it.

If all goes well, we should all be headed back to Middle-Earth in 2010. This truly is a terrific holiday gift for those who relished Jackson’s trilogy, which dominated the big screen and captured our imaginations in 2001-2003.

Random House has announced that the third book in the Inheritance series begun with Eragon and Eldest will be released Sept 23, 2008. The still-untitled third book will then be followed at a future date by a fourth installment. Yep - the trilogy has expanded to a “cycle.” (more…)

Here’s a sneak peek, via Cinematical, of the teaser poster for “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” due in theaters May 2008.Liam Neeson returns as the voice of the lion Aslan and Ben Barnes (”Stardust”) has the title role in this long-overdue sequel to 2005’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”In the new film, again based on the book by C.S. Lewis, the four war evacuees who saved Narnia from the White Witch in the previous film are summoned back to the magical land by a young prince trying to wrest the throne from his wicked uncle.Andrew Adamson, who directed the first movie, returns to helm this one and has screenwriting credits as well.

Publisher’s Weekly is reporting that Madeleine L’Engle, the author of children’s fantasy classics such as the 1963 Newbery Medal-winning “A Wrinkle in Time” and other books in the Time Quintet, has died at the age of 88. She leaves a legacy of weaving modern scientific notions (tesseracts, DNA) into kidlit and capturing the imagination of untold millions.