It seems the One Ring has proven to be malevolent again, at least for New Line Cinema, the movie company which brought The Lord of The Rings to the big screen.

For the heirs of J. R. R. Tolkien are suing the studio, claiming royalties of 75 million GBPs - their share of the 3 billion + profit generated by the big screen version of the hobbit saga.

The heads of The Tolkien Trust, the author’s son Christopher and his daughter Priscilla claim that they did not receive a penny for the films - their share must have been lost in the “infamous practice of creative ‘Hollywood accounting’”.

J. R. R. Tolkien sold the film rights of his saga in 1969, for 100.000 GBP and a certain percentage of the royalties. The trust now claims - in the spirit of the original contract - 7.5% of the films’ gross revenues. They also wish to have the right to block any rights New Line might have over the works of Tolkien, including the upcoming movie “The Hobbit” produced by Peter Jackson.

Of course, New Line did not comment on the case…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am and is filed under Hollywood, Literature, Movies, DVD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.