Peter Jackson is best known as the man behind one of the biggest cinematic trilogies of all time: The Lord of the Rings. As we all know, Jackson is a born and bred New Zealander, and due to its never ending beauty and perfectly other-worldly look, he crafted his wonderful adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision there, creating the perfect Middle Earth. The trilogy went on earn itself an incredible 30 Academy Award nominations, with 17 Oscar statues coming through in the end. Since then, Jackson has become one of the most recognizable and desired directors working today, and it was only a matter of time before some major accolades would find him.

It’s being reported that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who is New Zealand’s Head of State due to it formerly being a British colony, has officially named Jackson to their yearly honors’ list, officially making him Sir Peter Jackson. He joins an elite group that includes Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Sean Connery, Sir Elton John, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, and honorary representative Steven Spielberg.

In case you missed it, the interwebs were abuzz yesterday with whispers of Spider-Man star and newly Golden Globe nominated Brothers actor Tobey Maguire possibly being in consideration for the highly-coveted role of Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit. At first glance, this sounds like the worst rumor ever to be started, but in fact, it turned out to have some solid backing to it.

The possibilities began when Latino Review was informed that while promoting Brothers, Maguire was asked about who he would like to work with in the future, to which he replied “Guillermo del Toro. We may have something here in the near future.” Of course, this is way too good to just leave as it is, so LR dug a little deeper and discovered that Maguire was actually in the earliest of chit-chatting stages with producers of The Hobbit about the role.

The Temeraire series from author Naomi Novik began in 2006 and takes place in the ever-entertaining world of alternate history in which fictional stories and events are constructed around actual historical happenings. The series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars that ran from 1803 to 1815, but adds to it the existence of dragons who are manned and used in combat. So far, there have been five Temeraire books, with a ending being aimed for at nine books.

For a while now, Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson has had the Temeraire series as a potential project for him, but there has not been many updates. Recently, Jackson spoke to Ain’t It Cool News and spoke on the topic, which included information on how it may unfold, though it is way too early for any of it to be definite. With the series expected to be around nine books, it’s obviously very difficult to compact it all into one or more feature films. Because of this, Jackson thinks that the mini-series format, much like HBO does so well with titles like Band of Brothers could be a fair option, though it is always changing and would need to be researched further.

Click on over to read Peter Jackson’s current thoughts on the possibilities, and head over to AICN for more on the topic and a much longer interview in the new future.

Back in July, it was revealed that the family of author J.R.R. Tolkien was suing New Line Cinema and possibly stopping director Guillermo del Toro and producer Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit from happening. The report stated that when Tolkien sold the rights to his properties, the agreement included a 7.5% income off anything based on the titles, including movies. This translated to roughly $220 Million after the Lord of the Rings trilogy pulled down a coin or two at about $6 Billion worldwide.

After an offer here, a gripe there, and likely a pile of discussions, it has now been announced that this lawsuit has reached a settlement, and all is good in the lands of Middle Earth. Though the owed amount was at the said $220 Million, it appears that the family settled for around $100 Million in the end. This has to be looked at as a rather successful ordeal for New Line, who possibly saved $100-ish Million themselves — an amount that most believed was fairly owed.

Last month, we learned that Steven Spielberg himself was in negotiations to pick up the dead Halo movie project and develop it himself (Read: A Beacon Of Hope Emerges For The D.O.A. “˜Halo’ Movie & Its Name Is Steven Spielberg). Whether this means the movie will ever finally be made or not remains to be seen, but it is exciting for those who are dying to see this happen. We first got a glimpse of what a movie version of the mega-hit game would look like when District 9 director Neil Blomkamp filmed his own live-action version as a promo for Halo 3, but unfortunately, a huge estimated movie budget killed that project off. Now, fittingly, for the release of the spinoff game Halo ODST, a new director in Rupert Sanders has made yet another live-action promo, and it looks pretty fantastic.

Blomkamp proved that a budget was really no issue if you spend your money wisely — he made District 9 look like it cost $115 Million when in fact it only ran $30 Million. Before Spielberg got involved, Blomkamp said that if the Halo movie did indeed come back to his table he would probably turn it down, so the question became “Who else could do it?” This is a question that apparently Rupert Sanders thinks he has the answer to.

Click on over to see both Blomkamp and Sanders’ live-action Halo shorts, and choose who you would rather helm the movie if it ever happens.