Sony's gain may be Tolkien fans' loss

Sony's gain may be our loss . . . at least, those of us who are J.R.R. Tolkien fans.

Sony Corp. acquired the struggling Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. this week for nearly $5 billion. That acquisition puts both MGM and United Artists under the Sony umbrella and gives the multimedia conglomerate the distribution rights to any and all future James Bond projects, as well as the valuable Bond back catalog.

That's the good news. The bad news has to do with the Time Warner company, which was also trying to acquire MGM but eventually bowed out. Its reasons for trying to do so were pretty clear — Warners wanted the old back catalog of MGM films to release on video. (Warners already has video rights to many early MGM classics.)

And then there's "The Hobbit" . . .

Due to an old deal with the Zaentz family, MGM still retains the rights to a film version of Tolkien's "The Hobbit," the prequel to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

New Line Cinema, which is under the Warner umbrella, has been trying to work out a deal that would allow the studio — and director Peter Jackson, who made the "Rings" trilogy for that studio — to develop a live-action version of the beloved fantasy novel.

Given the level of competition, if not outright animosity, between the Sony and Time Warner corporations, that movie project may be delayed again — or may be dead.

Of course, Jackson isn't tied to New Line. His upcoming remake of "King Kong," starring Naomi Watts and Jack Black, is being made for Universal. But given the amount of support New Line executives showed him while he was making the "Rings" movies, it's doubtful that he'd want to make "The Hobbit" for another studio.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Sony can't find another filmmaker to adapt "The Hobbit." But really, after Jackson's definitive "Rings" trilogy, does anyone want to see someone else's version?

• THE RICH GET RICHER. . . . The MGM acquisition could be big for Sony for another reason. The various multimedia giants are currently taking sides in the friendly-so-far war over formats for new high-definition DVD technology.

Sony is solidly in the corner of Blu-Ray, which, along with Toshiba's competing HD-DVD, are the format's clear front-runners. But by getting MGM's back catalog, Sony could re-release even more films in the Blu-Ray format, helping it set the industry standard. And if it does, Sony stands to be the big winner.