I am excited about the movies, and can see no problem with the creation of associated books, particularly those focussing on the art and design. I think it is a sad thing about movies and TV, how transient the design and objects created are, no matter how lovely - and books probably help alleviate this situation to some extent.

(I thought I would try some 'Life on Mars' pencil sketches a few days ago, there is amazingly little decent-quality photography still about online for this series, even though it is only 6 years old and was really popular: a lot of the imagelinks I followed went to deleted images...)

I'm sure they will sell a metric fuckton of 'The Hobbit' as well, and a new audience of Tolkien enthusiasts will be born, some of whom will end up arguing furiously about the pronunciation of primitive Quendian or similar fripperies.