Quote Originally Posted by edczxcvbnm View Post
I had heard some rumblings not that long ago that the Tolken estate was suing to prevent these movies from being made due to not having received their compensation from the previous movies as stated in their contracts. Is there any truth to this?
Tolkien sold the film rights to LotR and The Hobbit to United Artists back in the 60s to pay some of his debts, on the condition that Tolkien Estate (which is operated by his children) be given 7.5% of the profits of any films made. The Saul Zaentz Company (aka Tolkien Enterprises) then purchased the rights from MGM in the 70s and in the late 90s, Zaentz leased out the rights to the film to New Line Cinema for the Trilogy to be made. New Line never paid the royalties to Zaentz for the movie. Zaentz sued and was awarded an undisclosed sum of money. Following that, Peter Jackson sued for money owed to him. New Line paid up. Now, Tolkien Estates is suing for $150+ million in royalties due to them for the three LotR films. New Line is on the verge of bankruptcy from what I hear and the Hobbit is supposed to save them, just as LotR saved them a few years back.

Tolkien Estates is suing for the royalties owed to them, and if they are not compensated, this is a breach of contract and I think their HOPE is that because of this breach, the film rights to the books would be reverted back to the family. This may happen, but it's also likely that the rights would simply revert back to Zaentz since it's unclear whether the breach of contract on New Line's part also applies to a breach in contract by Zaentz. If the rights are to revert back to the Tolkien Estates, then we would never see a Hobbit film made because Christopher Tolkien was positively seething when the LotR were made and released. He considered it blasphemy of his father's work. It's very unlikely that if Christopher Tolkien ever got his hands back onto the film rights, he would ever allow for further adaptations to be made on his father's works.

Similarly, this is the reason why we will never (or at least, never while Chris Tolkien is alive) see a film version of the Silmarillion because those film rights belong firmly with Tolkien Estates and Christopher Tolkien. Which is such a shame because the Silmarillion is my favorite Tolkien book. It's just absolutely majestic and there's enough material in the Silmarillion for multiple films.