A great interview about the up and coming adaptation of “The Hobbit” with director Guillermo del Toro (Peter Jackson is producing, not directing, this time around).
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/04/25/28747-guillermo-del-toro-chats-with-torn-about-the-hobbit-films/

For me, highlights include them clarifying the “two movies” issue. The events of “The Hobbit” are going to be contained in the first movie. The second movie is going to be a bridge, covering the 50 years between the Hobbit and LotR. AND finding out that they are going to rely less on purely CGI characters and insist that everything be animatronics enhanced by CGI. That makes me really happy. I am not a fan of mixing pure CGI with real world. I prefer things to be built and then enhanced. But this is especially true for creatures. So that makes me really, really happy.