Campaigner Rod Petrie seems to be on th right track with his campaign to retain Peter Jackson as the director of The Hobbit.

It looks like Peter Jackson will direct the movie version of the Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit after all. There was uproar last week when New Line Cinema told the director he was no longer needed. But Jackson has been thrown a lifeline by film producer Saul Zaentz who holds the screen rights to Tolkien Enterprises.

Zaentz has told The Sun newspaper the rights to The Hobbit fall back to his company next year and when that happens, Jackson will be back on the project.