According to The Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.Net, Sam Raimi has been approached to direct The Hobbit.

Since Peter Jackson announced that he will not be directing the film, due his lawsuit against New Line Cinema for earnings discrepancies with the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it seems the Spider-Man director may step into his place.

Raimi is currently working on Spider-Man 3 and it would seem likely that if the movie is a success, that he would soon-after start working on Spider-Man 4, so it will be interesting to see how this develops.

While there is no word on Raimi accepting the invitation to direct The Hobbit, it remains to be seen who, if anyone, will be replacing Peter Jackson!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes to theaters December 14th, 2012 and stars Cate Blanchett, Saoirse Ronan, Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, Martin Freeman, David Tennant, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee. The film is directed by Peter Jackson.