{"id":112369,"date":"2022-02-18T20:03:01","date_gmt":"2022-02-19T01:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=112369"},"modified":"2022-02-18T20:08:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T01:08:46","slug":"warner-bros-and-saul-zaentz-co-spar-over-tolkien-film-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2022\/02\/18\/112369-warner-bros-and-saul-zaentz-co-spar-over-tolkien-film-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner Bros. and Saul Zaentz Co. spar over Tolkien film rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Variety reports that Warner Bros. and the Saul Zaentz Co<\/a>. are currently in private mediation to settle differences over license rights to film adaptations of key J.R.R. Tolkien’s works The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Variety’s sources, the argument stems from disagreement about whether the studio has met ongoing obligations needed to maintain the long-term license that it has held since the late 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement to Variety, a Warner Bros. spokeswoman said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Line Cinema has maintained the theatrical film rights, both live-action and animated, for over two decades now. We are currently in production on our anime film \u2018The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim\u2019 and look forward to bringing audiences back to Middle-earth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Warner Bros. earlier this week announced<\/a> a release date for that film, and showed off the first samples of concept art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Variety points out, license deals such as this “often involve producers conducting a certain level of development and production activity by pre-determined dates, among other clauses.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is the Saul Zaetnz Co. (through its subsidiary, Middle-earth Enterprises) that holds the rights to exploit The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit “in movies, video games, merchandising, live events and theme parks.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Variety adds that this includes limited matching rights should the Tolkien Estate make movies or other content based on two Tolkien books published after his death: The Silmarillion, and The Unfinished Tales of N\u00famenor and Middle-earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Saul Zaentz Co. also recently announced <\/a>that it will auction all its Tolkien IP rights. Universal and Warner Bros. are both reported to be interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more at Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Variety reports that Warner Bros. and the Saul Zaentz Co. are currently in private mediation to settle differences…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":112371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[36,7,153,5,1287,6,38,98,498,148,149,37,152,154,392],"tags":[3645,3776,1167,698,3777,1236,2864],"class_list":["post-112369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fotr-book","category-hobbit-book","category-tolkien-life","category-lotr-movies","category-new-line-cinema-production-studios","category-tolkbooks","category-rotk-book","category-silmarillion","category-production-studios","category-hobbit","category-lotr","category-ttt-book","category-tolkien","category-tolkien-estate","category-warner-bros","tag-anime","tag-film-rights","tag-middle-earth-enterprises","tag-saul-zaentz-company","tag-the-war-of-the-rohirrim","tag-universal-studios","tag-warner-bros"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/The-War-of-the-Rohirrim-3-Questions-About-The-Lord.webp","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-tep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112369"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112374,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112369\/revisions\/112374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}