Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Sam Raimi recently talked about THE HOBBIT during press for SPIDER-MAN 3 and the feeling I got from that was that he thought the series belonged to Peter Jackson and wouldn't even consider it if he didn't have Jackson's approval. That could just be him playing politics, though.

Now Columbia has picked up a fantasy flick from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It was a huge deal. Raimi is definitely lined up to produce, though the trades don't mention him being locked in to direct.

The title wasn't released, but the story follows a New York cynic who is forced to go to a land untouched by modern civilization and ends up a reluctant hero, saving a village and a princess from fairy tale creatures.