The Hobbit Movie is under threat, this time from the Tolkien Estate!

[Werthead]

The Hobbit film adaption is probably going to go down in history as one of the most troubled productions of all time.

 

After two years of bitter wrangling between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema (with uber-producers Saul Zaentz and MGM acting as mediators), they finally came to an agreement a couple of months back to film The Hobbit and an original prequel film set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Guillermo del Toro was being lined up to direct, Jackson is producing and WETA will again provide SFX. On the actor front, Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis have said they'd do it, Ian Holm has indicated he won't and Christopher Lee, Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen (the latter of whom may be in the prequel movie, but probably not The Hobbit) have all said, "Maybe". A release date of 2010 had been pencilled in.

 

Now all bets are off. The Tolkien Estate have filed a lawsuit against New Line, claiming that they were not paid the 7.5% of the gross for the trilogy as they are entitled to under the deal Tolkien signed with Zaentz way back in 1968. In addition, they are claiming $150 million in damages and are threatening to revoke the rights to The Hobbit. Wowsers.

 

Early indications are that New Line are going to fight it, but will first try to extricate The Hobbit's rights from the mess so production can proceed whilst the court battle is under way. If they can't, the movie will be postponed indefinitely until a settlement is reached.

[ironcross]

is it me or is new line trying to go bankrupt? i mean they want to make all this money but not pay any of the people who they are suposed to pay anything. talk about greed.

 

heres the yahoo artical about it http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/ap_en_mo/tolkien_lawsuit