bad news for the hobbit film

[tomwaits4noman]

The big screen adaptation of The Hobbit could be in jeopardy after the estate of JRR Tolkien launched a lawsuit against the film company behind the blockbusting The Lord of the Rings trilogy for $150 million.

New Line Cinema have been accused of failing to pay royalty payments from the $6 billion made from the franchise. The Tolkien Trust filed the suit in LA on Monday.

The trust are seeking $150 million in damages, as well as terminating New Line's rights to The Lord Of The Rings prequel The Hobbit.

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/12022008/5/hobbit-jeopardy-tolkien-estate-sues-new-line-0.html

[arttorney]

Oops.

Well I smell a brief period of name calling and finger pointing followed by an out of court settlement. (By brief, I mean about 6 months if it is in state court and a year if it is in federal court.)

[Jabo]

There was going to be a Hobbit film? :P

[arttorney]

Yeah, apparently they were even trying to figure out how to elaborate it into two movies. Studios can't help playing their little games. How to make more money from the public? How to avoid paying out those royalties to talent? It's all pretty typical.

[Presence]

I don't think this is going to stop the production, New Line owns the rights to produce no matter what and that is what they are doing, producing.

[AlexC]

I hate how greedy humans are sometimes, it really get's me down:(

[arttorney]

Don't worry. It will get produced. The studio owns the right to produce as long as they pay according to the license terms. The Tolkien Trust people no doubt allege that these payments haven't been made according to Hoyle, which if it is true could give them the right to cancel the contract. Obviously, if they do that, there will not be any royalties from the movie that didn't get produced. Stopping the movie is therefore not their true goal. All it will take is for New Line to cough up a little green mail. The litigation in the meantime is basically an elaborate form of a negotiation, since New Line would likely not want to cough up any more than necessary. Everybody just needs a little time to feel out each others strengths and weaknesses in the matter so they know what price they can agree to.

I know it might seem lame that a litigation is necessary to bring about fruitful negotiations, but many times people don't feel they need to negotiate if they are not faced with a threat of ever losing anything. If the Tolkien Trust people did not have court enforceable rights to exclude people from making the movies they would never have gotten a deal to license rights to make the movies in the first place. Everybody just goes ahead and uses public domain material for free.