At long last, New Line has confirmed that “The Hobbit” will come to the big screen. Peter Jackson is on board, but he’s not directing, he’s producing. And, the book will apparently be split in half and made into two films.

I’m glad to see “The Hobbit” will be adapted after all, though I’m a little worried about who will direct it and if that person will do as well as Jackson did in directing the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Also, it had never occurred to me that maybe they’d split the book up into two films — which I think is an excellent idea. It should allow for a more thorough telling of the story — and maybe shorter film lengths — than if it was all crammed into one movie.

And that’s really, in my opinion, the bane of adapting book to film. It’s taking a medium that tends to have deeply developed characters and backstory in maybe 300 or 500 or 1000 pages and adapting it to a medium that thrives on visual storytelling — avoiding exorbitant amounts of dialogue, voice-over, etc. — and generally amounts to about a minute’s worth of film per page of script. So, merely taking your average 300-page edition of “The Hobbit” and using that formula amounts to 5 hours of viewing pleasure. Eek. That’s far from exact, but gives you an idea of what it is to adapt from book to screen.

It seems to me the screenwriters and director will be able to cut much less of “The Hobbit” than was cut of “Lord of the Rings,” but I’d imagine there will still be some trimming — not to mention outright changes.

Which, to the behest of the purists I’m sure, is fine with me, as long as the changes are good. I’m a big fan of Tolkien’s works — I re-read the “Lord of the Rings” books often and I’ve even read the whole “Silmarillion” and all the “Unfinished Tales” — but I honestly thought the scriptwriters on the LOTR movies made some smart changes to bring the books into the film medium.

I try not to judge a film adaptation of a book based on every little detail being intact. I think they need to be judged separately, as separate works, one as a book and one as a film. If you want great examples of why this is so, just take a look at Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and Francis Ford Coppola’s adapted “Apocalypse Now” or James Jones’ “The Thin Red Line” and Terrence Malick’s adapted version of it.

As far as director is concerned, here's hoping they hire a good one. Maybe someone like Bryan Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns) might be good, though he might be tied up with the next Superman, due out in 2009. Or maybe Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins), though he's working on the next Batman. Or, maybe they should find a good small-time director to make his bigger debut, like Jackson did.