Tolkien Trust Files Suit Against New Line

LOS ANGELES, February 12: The
J.R.R. Tolkien estate has filed a $150-million suit against Time Warner’s New
Line Cinema over unpaid royalties from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

According to reports, the
complaint was filed yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court by the author’s
estate, The Tolkien Trust charity and publisher HarperCollins. The plaintiffs
charge “unabashed and insatiable greed” on the part of New Line, which produced
and distributed the three films. They say they received nothing from the film’s
revenues, just a $62,500 advance fee. The plaintiffs allege that according to a
1969 contract between HarperCollins and United Artists—an agreement that
was inherited by New Line when they secured the rights to make the
films—the trustees and the publisher were entitled to a 7.5 percent share
of the gross revenues. The movies made about $6 billion in box-office and
ancillary revenues, according to the plaintiffs. They are seeking damages and
an injunction to terminate New Line’s rights to make any further films based on
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

“I think that it’s going to be
extremely interesting to see how New Line is going to explain to a jury that
these films grossed $6 billion and yet by their calculations the creators’
heirs are not going to get even a single penny,” Bonnie Eskenazi, the United
States lawyer for the trustees, is quoted as saying in the New York Times.

In 2005, director Peter Jackson
sued New Line, questioning the profit share he received and requesting an audit
of revenues from the trilogy. That suit was settled last year, paving the way
for a deal for The Hobbit films. MGM and New Line will co-finance and co-distribute the
two films, with New Line holding the rights for North America and MGM
distributing internationally. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will serve as
executive producers, and New Line will manage the production. The Hobbit and its sequel are scheduled to be shot
simultaneously, with principle photography tentatively set for 2009. The
Hobbit is slated for release in 2010 with
the sequel arriving the following year.

—By Mansha Daswani