Everyone (except maybe really hardcore “Firefly” fans) knows that online petitions are worse than useless. Print them out on a piece of paper though, and suddenly they have value. For instance, fan delivered a petition containing 39,116 signatures to New Line Cinema and MGM studios demanding that Peter Jackson be brought in to direct MGM’s impending adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s LOTR prequel (except it was written first) The Hobbit.

The petition was prompted by the news that while MGM is going full steam ahead on their Hobbit movie, and hinted that they’d like Jackson to do it, Peter insists he knows absolutely nothing about it.

MGM has now responded to that massive fan petition, and here’s what they told The One Ring: “MGM would be thrilled to collaborate with the Academy Award-winning director on this MGM New Line Cinema production. And, I’m sure to the delight of the 50,000 filmgoers who have petitioned us in recent weeks, demanding we bring this film to fruition, we have had a few initial conversations about the project with Mr. Jackson’s representatives.”

As you can tell, they’re incredibly non-committal. I know fans are pretty happy about this little response, but to me it sounds like a brush off. “Initial conversations” could be anything, and the fact that they announced they were making the movie before even bothering to contact Peter’s reps at all tells me they aren’t really all that committed to having him do it... if at all. Don’t hold your breath folks. Call me cynical but until we get something better than studio-speak, I’m expecting a version of The Hobbit that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the Lord of the Rings movies we already know and love.