MGM ramping up James Bond and The Hobbit?

With MGM's financial blackhole all but sorted out, it was inevitable that we'd start hearing reports of a return of the studio's two biggest franchises. The last few weeks there have been numerous stories about their aim to get Martin Freeman(The UK version of The Office) for the role of Bilbo Baggins(formerly played by Ian Holm in the LOTR trilogy). Those negotiations are still underway, but little was said of an actual start date for filming.

Now comes the extremely chatty Sir Ian McKellan again, who has been the most vocal castmember during the last couple of years. Ol' Gandalf has been both an enthusiastic supporter of the film production and an equally frustrated one during MGM's financial crisis. Most recently he expressed that he might not be able to play the wizard if the delays continued. This time McKellan is back as leader of the friggin' Hobbit pep squad again, telling The Bolton News that he will definitely be back a Gandalf, and that filming will begin some time in January of 2011.

I'll believe it when I see it.

With that announcement also comes word that MGM might be ready to dust off the James Bond franchise again, which has also been on the shelf while their restructuring was taking place. Sam Mendes(Road to Perdition) was all set to direct Bond 23, but with the franchise's future uncertain he began looking at other projects. One of those was The Hunger Wars, which Gary Ross is now directing. Mendes pulled his name out of the running at the last second, due to MGM's situation clearing up. The hope now is to begin production in the late summer or early fall of 2011.

Again, I'll believe it when I see it. MGM isn't quite on stable ground as of yet, so trying to cement future projects is a little silly. However it's good to see that they're even at a stage where projects can be discussed, because for far too long all we heard about MGM was bad news.