Tolkien Enterprises To Film Hobbit With Jackson?

cyclomedia writes "TheOneRing.Net has a new scoop on the ongoing Hobbit Movie saga, sourced from elbenwald.de. Apparently the rights to make the Hobbit film fall back to Saul Zaentz 'next year.' He claims that, under their stewardship, The Hobbit will 'definitely be shot by Peter Jackson.' For the whippersnappers amongst you: Mr. Zaentz is the head honcho of Tolkien Enterprises, which originally acquired exclusive rights to productions of the LOTR and Hobbit material in 1976, prior to overseeing the Bakshi animated version of LOTR."

Comments

Tolkein?

[pugdk]

Who is this Tolkein you are talking about?

Re:Tolkein?

[BeeBeard]

Don't you mean "Who are you Tolkien about?" :)

Does this explain New Line's decision?

[Xest]

I guess this is perhaps why New Line didn't want to hang around for Jackson any longer and why they sounded in such a rush to get it started in their statements?

How does film licensing work, if New Line doesn't finish the film by the time Tolkien enterprises gets the license back are they allowed to publish it still or do they lose all rights to it?

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[Timesprout]

I guess this is perhaps why New Line didn't want to hang around for Jackson any longer

I think its more Jackson not being prepared to work with New Line again given he had to sue them for his royalties. Trying to stiff the person who created a cash cow for you is not exactly conducive to a harmonious working relationship.

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[Lissajous]

Pretty much yeah - my guess is that even though New Line are legally entitled to make The Hobbit prior to the license revoking, given this news that PJ will film it with Tolkien Enterprises (assuming he confirms it, of course) will pretty much scupper that.
After all, it's the Jackson/WETA name that would put bums on seats rather than the New Line name. I mean, which would you go to see? A rush-job put out so NL could monopolize on the license before it expired, or a piece where Jackson *and* Tolkien Enterprises paid the proper respect to the IP? Thanks for the offer of a Big Mac, but I don't want to ruin my appetite.

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[Sv-Manowar]

I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that "Tolkien Enterprises" hold the rights to the films (LOTR, Hobbit etc) and were paid by New Line in order to grant them a license to create them (evidently this would have been for a large sum of money and all of the films at once, rather than licensing each individual one at a time as it would have given either side a chance to renegotiate based on the success/failure of what was release). This deal would have been signed with a clause saying that it "ends" in X amount of years, so that Tolkien Enterprises take back the rights and can either produce it themselves or relicense it to another studio in the case of New Line not producing the film in time, putting it on the backburner or just deciding not to work on it for monetary/staff reasons (such as the dispute with Peter Jackson now).

If New Line do not get production underway pretty soon, they risk the rights being taken away from them and I have a feeling that is the primary reason why they are making noise about moving on without Peter Jackson, because evidently they do not want to stop fighting the lawsuit but that is probably the only way it could happen any time soon. What they risk is the backlash that is beginning now, with stars such as Ian Mckellen expressing "dissapointment" at the Jackson scenario, I have a feeling that New Line will run into some problems getting a number of the actors and crew back on board without the man who practically 'made' the franchise what it is.

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[Cruise_WD]

It never ceases to amaze me when people are so incredibly short-sighted. Given that Peter Jackson created a trilogy that was /hugely/ successful, and that the vast majority of people associate his name with the films rather than New Line (I could not have told you the film company associated with LotR [or any film, for that matter] had you asked), what makes more sense:

1) "Let's try and screw him for his royalties, but in the process piss him off so he'll never work for us again."

or

2) "Let's be really nice to him so he'll keep making these financially successful films for us."

How far up your arse does head need to be for 1) to see like the best option?

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[Dunbal]

"Let's be really nice to him so he'll keep making these financially successful films for us."

      But, but, after you account for all the 5 star hotels, first class air tickets, german cars, party girls and cocaine, the film actually lost money! "What - you mean we have to buy our OWN coke?" - A random New Line executive

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[ronanbear]

It's pretty standard in the film industry. New Line took huge risks by funding 3 movies at once but they also made a lot more money. It was a complicated deal that created opportunities to fiddle the books. They didn't just stiff Jackson though. Tolkien Enterprises also sued New Line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_Enterprises for $20m.

The details of the deal aren't too well known. In fact Jackson wasn't aware until recently that the rights would expire at all. It's hard to speculate but it appears that New Line still have time to make the Hobbit and the deal should cover some overrun so that work can still continue on an unfinished project.

After that the rights revert to Tolkien Enterprises so unless there's a clause in the contract that stops Tolkien Enterprises from reshooting the Hobbit immediately it's entirely possible that Jackson could make another version within a year or two (or within months if they were to write the script and do preproduction before they acquire the rights).

A New Line Hobbit film is likely to be profitable so there's a good chance they might try that and hope that Jackson doesn't want to take the risk to compete with a later attempt.

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[bladesjester]

I'd say that a large part of the reason for not putting Gimli in a more warrior role had a lot to do with the fact that they had to shoot all of his scenes seperately, and getting the shot of Rhys-Davies lined up perfectly with the shot of the other main characters *and* the CGI monsters would be difficult. And then you have the scenes where the monsters are actors and that becomes even harder because fight scenes are not easy to duplicate.

I always found it kind of funny that the guy playing the dwarf was basically the biggest one in the movie. Besides, who says warriors can't also be something of a comic figure? After so many times of someone wanting to split your skull, it becomes something you start to have a bit of a sense of humor about - otherwise you crack =]

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[geobeck]

it appears that New Line still have time to make the Hobbit...it's entirely possible that Jackson could make another version within a year or two...

Given this development, it's more likely that New Line will scrap their version unless they are really shortsighted (which is entirely possible). It's kind of like trying to sell a mediocre 1.2 release of a product when everyone is buzzing about the far superior 2.0 release just ahead.

And with the size of the official LOTR fan club, the fact that New Line has much more marketing muscle won't matter as much; word of mouth will be huge in advertising "Peter and the Ring V2.0".

Re:Does this explain New Line's decision?

[rochrist]

It's not that simple. There's no guarantee that he can continue to make successful films. If you look at the career of any "great" director (except for a few luminaries), you will find hit, flop, flop, hit, hit, flop, flop, hit, etc. Even if they made what is considered a classic film, it may have lost money or not been very successful at the box office.

So yes, continuing to work with Peter Jackson is still a big risk. Case in point: King Kong. Which pulled in 550 million from the theatrical release alone, with a production budget of 207 million. Not LOTR numbers, but not a failure either.

New scoops coming soon

[Rastignac]

Peter Jackson will write a book "If I Did It". He will also sing a reggae song "I shot the Hobbit" (featuring Gollum as a CGI Bob Marley).

Re:New scoops coming soon

[BeeBeard]

"No precioussssss I did not shoot stupid, fat deputy!"

I'd buy it!

I just wanna know...

[cronot]

... what all these guys have against the Hobbit? I mean, this Saul guy is hiring that thug Peter to have the Hobbit shot... That Hobbit should have banged his wife or something...

Stewardship

[camperdave]

Well, if there's anything Return of the King taught us, it's the value of a good Steward.

Rights expiring don't mean much...

[payndz]

...if New Line can *start* production before the date of expiry. I can think of two examples off the top of my head of movies which were rushed into production before the film rights expired - Roger Corman's version of The Fantastic Four (which admittedly was never released), and Queen Of The Damned - made by Warner Bros, who also own New Line. I'm sure there are others.

Whether New Line would do this depends entirely on their prediction of profit vs loss. If they think enough people will go and see a Hobbit film even without Jackson for them to get a good enough return on investment, they could well rush a film into production, and let their lawyers handle Zaentz's objections.

Re:Rights expiring don't mean much...

[Dunbal]

Whether New Line would do this depends entirely on their prediction of profit vs loss.

      Obviously they won't do it then, since apparently they lost so much money with LOtR...which is why they don't want to pay PJ in the first place...

Re:Hooray!

[Dunbal]

Why is this a troll? It's one thing to edit and abridge a story in order to make it fit a motion picture format. It's another thing entirely to take huge liberties with the characters and create fictitious events in order to justify these "new" characters. Some of the greatest drama in Return of the King was reduced to petty bickering between the main characters - in order to leave more room for the "special effects".

      I also shudder to think to what they will do to The Hobbit.

I dunno....

[srhoades]

Tolkien, Hobbits, Elf's??? All of this sounds as if it has a bad ring to it.

Should LOTR not be public domain?

[biscon]

The books were written in the 30s and 40s. I thought they would be in the public domain by now?

Re:Should LOTR not be public domain?

[xoyoyo]

70 years after the death of the author in the UK, so you'll have to wait until 2043.

MGM may override New Line

[TheSHAD0W]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comments/?entry id=381433

Looks like Tolkien Enterprises isn't the only one who wants to let Jackson do the job.

Peter Jackson should take care

[Robotech_Master]

If Peter Jackson has anything to do with Saul Zaentz, he should take care. Zaentz treated a certain other Peter rather poorly in conjunction with the production of the Lord of the Rings animated film.

Re:Hooray!

[owlnation]

I've never understood the frequent "but the film makers changed the story wah wah wah" complaint - for any movie, not just LoTR.

Film is Film, TV is TV, Books are Books, Opera is Opera, etc etc... it is near impossible to adapt a book or a play to the big screen without changing elements - for a whole variety of reasons. For example, the drama of a play is delivered by actors who are so far away from their audience that subtle gestures HAVE to be replaced by dialogue, for a movie you can lose all that dialogue and replace it with close-ups and reaction shots. Books can allow characters to have narration or internal monologues which invariably looks cheesy on the big screen. The rhythm, cadence and pacing of a book is usually radically different from the needs of a movie.

They are NOT the same. They will NEVER be the same. Whether they are better or worse is subjective. They give out oscars for screen adaptations for a reason. It is damn hard.

Feel free to compare apples to apples - i.e. it is perfectly valid to compare a remake with the original film, but comparing film to book is not necessarily valid. The important thing to realize is that they are NOT mutually destructive. You actually can enjoy the book and also enjoy the movie. Or only one of them if you dislike the other. You lose nothing.

And...a bad film version will not mean that there can never be another film version.

Samuel L. ?

[Raynach]

Was I the only person to think they were talking about Samuel L. Jackson?

"I'm sick of these mother fuckin' hobbits in this mother fuckin' shire!"

Who owns what

[Dracos]

Apparently some people are confused as to who owns what.

• Saul Zaentz owns the film/tv (most non-print, iirc) rights to all of Tolkien's works.
• New Line has a license to produce films based on LOTR, which they have exercised.
• MGM has a license to produce film(s) based on The Hobbit, which they have not exercised.

Both Jackson and New Line tried to buy MGM's license multiple times in the last decade. MGM wouldn't sell for any reasonable price.

With the expiration of MGM's license drawing nigh, they realized that they finally had to do something in order to profit from it. What's the simplest thing to do? Go to New Line and offer a partnership that puts Jackson in the mix.

What MGM didn't count on is the accounting suit Jackson has against New Line regarding profits from FotR, a suit that New Line is stonewalling, but apparently tried to settle as a condition of Hobbit production, which Jackson didn't like. Everyone involved knows that any Hobbit film is dependent on Jackson's involvement for maximum profitability.

And now MGM's license is about to expire. MGM has to be pissed at New Line for allowing this to happen. Jackson is probably annoyed at New Line for trying to drag his lawsuit into it. New Line is probably salivating at the prospect of finally getting the Hobbit license for themselves, to do with as they wish. They just have to hope Jackson doesn't get it, if he wants it.

If Jackson does get the Hobbit license, wouldn't it just be a kick in the balls if he had MGM distribute it?