After shotty drawn-out bickering over who can make a movie and who can't, New Line has come to terms with Peter Jackson to make the famed Lord of the Rings prequel, "The Hobbit" (that's the one about Bilbo Baggins, and is totally Frotto-less).

Announcement was made public today. And they have something to work for now with I Am Legend nabbing the #1 opening weekend box office in December ever last week from Lord of The Rings' "Return of the King."

But Jackson is only attached to produce, and no director has been announced. It will be a 2-movie production that will likely be shot simultaneously, much like the original trilogy was under Jackson's direction. The movies are set to release 2010 and 2011, so looks like we'll start the decade off on the right feet with film, yes? That's crazy to think about considering The Hobbit was first published 1937. My parents weren't even a glimmer in my grandparents' eyes.

Jackson was just here in Royersford 2 weeks ago filming another adaption of another popular novel, The Lovely Bones. We can't seem to get enough of this dude.

It'd be a slight slap of hypocrisy across your cheek if, I, Mr. entertainment blogger for the Merc, didn't make some kind of mention about Hollywood's recent eclipse over Royersford, with Mr. Peter Jackson bringing some camera lenses and Mark Wahlberg around and all. And I'm not much of a slapper. so...

Obviously, I'm talking about the current filming of Peter Jackson's adaption of Alice Sebold's acclaimed novel, "The Lovely Bones." Everyone around here has been abuzz with star shock and hatin' on the closed roads. But dude, the guy who made "Meet The Feebles" is right down the road! I guess he also made some lauded trilogy adaption of the Lord of the Rings too, which kind of makes him the new George Lucas. But I don't know if you ever saw that or not.

Besides "Clerks 2" taught us, "There's only one return, and it's not of The King. It's of The Jedi."

Anyway, in case you for some reason didn't know, Royersford is swarming with a little slice of Hollywood. But it won't last long, because the film crew is then off to New Zealand for filming next year. The film itself won't hit theaters until March of 2009, so sit tight Bones fans.

But, our sneaky photographer/videographer John Strickler somehow managed to grab some footage of the film being shot. So why wait till 2009?! The video is on www.pottsmerc.com if you missed it.

Speaking of Strickler, I have to tip my hat to him for the concept of the Boyertown Bear Hunt, which was a resounding success. BUT! I'd like to share with everyone that he and I were years ahead of the huntin' bears curve. Before I was even in Kindergarten, I went on a photo run with him to a local golf course where a real live furiously savage bear had run amuck onto the greens. So, while the two of us are now ineligible to win the prizes, we were hunt bears when you were still in diapers. Well, I was too, but I was hunting bears IN DIAPERS!