Dominic Monaghan while promoting the next portion of this season of ABC’s hit series LOST, stopped to comment to iF on the state of affairs with THE HOBBIT movie (prequel to the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy) which is locked in a battle between New Line Cinema and director Peter Jackson. When asked point blank what he thought of the bitter war over the rights to the Tolkien story, the actor very wisely stated, “ This is a very iffy subject that you have to be careful with professionally as an actor because I’ve worked with New Line Cinema and I’ve worked with Pete Jackson and I have good relationships with both of them. My personal feeling as a fan is I think it’s a real shame that New Line and Pete Jackson don’t seem to be able to work out what’s going to happen with THE HOBBIT. I think fans of that franchise would like to see New Line Studios attached with Pete Jackson directing.” [More]

Dominic Monaghan is slated to be a guest on ‘Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson’ tonight (December 22nd) on CBS. It is not known if this interview took place before or after the fire that destroyed his ‘Lost’ co-star and girlfriend Evangeline Lilly’s home in Hawaii. The Late Show airs on CBS at 12:35AM EST.

“I’m going to be an action figure!!??” That’s what Malcolm David Kelley (Lost’s Walt) exclaimed after the 14-year-old learned from his TV dad, Harold Perrineau (Michael), that the cast is getting plastic mini-me replicas. Comics legend Todd McFarlane scanned the faces of Lost cast members and videotaped their bodies to help create their 6-inch versions. Or more accurately in Malcolm’s case, 4 inches, max. [More]

The folks from Billy’s Loons Charities write: Billy’s Loons Charities is excited to announce our latest auction to benefit The Scottish Youth Theatre, www.scottishyouththeatre.org, where Billy Boyd is a Patron, and Billy’s Loons Charities is a sponsor. This auction is an unique set consisting of a large Lord of the Rings poster of Pippin and Merry, signed by Billy Boyd, and an extremely hard to find package of Fangorn Forest Incense, signed by Billy Boyd and Treebeard himself, John Rhys-Davies! Note the message Billy wrote on the incense: “This smells better than Dom”. [More]

Many thanks to Billy Boyd and John Rhys-Davies for their autographs, to Alesia and Elisa for the poster and incense and to Auntie Nu for the photographs.