I just saw Time After Time. My wife saw the guy who played Jack the Ripper and said "That guy's evill!" And I said, "Well, yeah, he's..." "No, I mean he's Evil --- capital E! Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?" I mean, it's hard to imagine Gilliam would make a Hobbit that would be consistent enough with the universe of the LotR film trilogy, and there's always the chance that the film could get away from Gilliam, as Gilliam films do. But he'd definitely be a guy who'd go for a project as ambitious in the imagination department as Jackson was in the technical department. And maybe Jackson producing, with that studio that Jackson built, with all his team members bringing their experience from LotR --- maybe all that would protect and/or save Gilliam from the over-reach that does him in, or whatever it is that too frequently does his films in.