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Tolkien Trust Sues New Line, May Kill "Hobbit"
oboreruhito writes "The AP is reporting that the Tolkien Trust and HarperCollins are suing New Line Cinema for $150 million in compensatory damages, unspecified punitive damages, and a court order revoking New Line's rights to produce any more films on Tolkien properties. The Tolkien Trust says that New Line paid them only $62,500 to make 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy of films — instead of the agreed-upon 7.5 percent of gross receipts of all film-related revenue. The suit may set back, if not kill, a film adaptation of Lord of the Rings prequel 'The Hobbit,' which Peter Jackson had recently signed up to make after his own legal row with the studio over payment for the sequels."
The term you're looking for is Hollywood accounting.
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Even so, many films with big-name actors that are called "independent" are nonetheless closely tied to studios. Remember the buzz over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , a fresh new film made by a new group of filmmakers outside the mainstream? Well, it came from Focus Features, which despite calling itself an "art house" studio is in fact owned by Universal.
One wonders if the accounting on European films is more honest. European film industries are heavily subsidized by the state, and when you have to report back to the state on what you've done with their funding, perhaps there is less temptation to cook the books.
The MPAA and their lovers in bed the RIAA have been gong after people for downloading movies and music and everything in between in hopes that people will buy more CDs or specifically more songs (Wired says record companies make more money off songs than CDs>) even to the extent of saying it is illegal to rip CD you bought and put it on your computer and than again to place those same purchased songs on your iPod or MP3 player.
This is pathetic. Those hippocrits are still making tons of money due to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the millions they have made so far, they should at least be respectful. Without LoTR I bet New Line wouldn't have enough money to spend bribing congressman so they should be happy with the few they can buy off and wait for another movie after paying their debts to penetrate deeper and deeper in our government.
Slowly and slowly we are electing the MPAA and RIAA into office and sooner or later the world will be come a dictatorship, not by a single person or politician, but by the entertainment industry telling us we can't even laugh without paying a tax for something funny.
But what do I know?
One day the world of robotics will have the answer.
Actually, it would appear that Newline is a bunch of crooks. They did the same thing to Peter Jackson himself.
Article on it
So not only do they screw the Tolkien trust, but they also screw the guy who MADE the movie. Good job Newline, I have a feeling you may have a hard time attracting talent in the future.
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Yeah I know, formatting is for wussies! There I go again:
What's depressing is that this is becoming more and more a standard practice, as the courts do not demand enough punitive damage to seriously discourage such bullying... and New Line Cinema seems to have a long record at that.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
When I lived in Wales I shared a student house with a girl called Freya who is a close descendant of Tolkien. I have to say the family is a very nice family and they certainly should get alot more than they are currently getting for the rights. Then again, why should they make money for someone elses work that they didn't make themselves? It's a tough call, but I'm biased so I think they should get the money (and give some to me lol) :-)
They haven't won their suit yet. The studios haven't yet gotten what they deserve. But I'm with you -- I hope they lose BIG. The judge should award triple damages.
I'm with you 100% there. Copyright is supposed to encourage authors/composers/etc. to create new works to enrich society. Tolkien isn't even enriching the ground he's buried in anymore, so there's *zero* need for a copyright to continue to exist on his works. Copyright is only providing an income stream for his heirs (and New Line) at the expense of society now.
I think that New Line is scummy for their shady accounting practices, but they really should not have had to negotiate for the film rights to begin with.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The reason for IP is to give the creators an incentive to create, not for the folks who buy the rights to profit off of them for all eternity.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Major entertainment companies have long been of the opinion that the artists who create the products they sell are expendable and interchangable
While the artist that created the product New Line is selling was neither expendable nor interchangeable, after almost 35 years he is still irrevocably dead, and as such is quite unlikely to be writing anything more in the near future anyway. New Line should be getting raked firmly over the coals for attempting to weasel out of performing on a contract, but if copyright law made any sense at all they wouldn't have had to pay a dime to Tolkien's estate to make the movie.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Look, I'm going to type this very slowly, because you are clearly hard of understanding. Also, you will need to sit down, because what I am going to tell you will shock you to your very core.
Studios lie.
Are you all right? Can you speak? Just keep breathing!
Please read this. Read all the words. Note how WB acknowledged though their actions that Babylon 5 made a net profit each and every season (or else they'd have shitcanned it). And yet the final figure, long after all production expenses ceased and all the post production merchandising and DVDs sales were in, was a net $80 million loss.
Studios lie. They lie all the time, to almost everyone. The only people that they have to keep sweet are their big names, and only if they think they can't be replaced. Everyone else has to sue them to get any money, and the studios gamble (and often win) that the peons don't have the necessary resources to do it.
So feel free to go on arguing about how things should work. The rest of us can discuss how they actually work.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If your name doesn't come before the title, then you're never, ever getting a sniff of the gross. Even headline producers, writers and directors often can't demand that, and end up with less than the guy working the clapboard for union salary.
One of the most egregious cases is creator/producer/writer J. Michael Straczynski getting boned over Babylon 5 . He was in for a share of the net, and Warner Brothers demonstrated by their actions that the show was making a net profit every season (or else it would have been shitcanned). However, the final figure, after all production expenses had long since ceased, and all the money from merchandise and DVD sales (half a billion gross!) was in worked out to a claimed $80 million loss. Riddle me that.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I must admit that I was suprised that the studio apparently gave no thought given to the Tolkein Estate interest in the tie-ins. The original contract was pre-Star Wars. They bought an option on the film rights, not the merchandising. Merchandising did not exist in 1969.
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I do have one question, though. Why did the Tolkien trust wait until all of the legal battles had been resolved before filing suit? They waited until 7 years after the release of the first film to start legal action. What gives with that?
Additionally, they are trying to quash the production of "The Hobbit" as a film by NewLine. Now, I don't have any particular feeling about NewLine one way or the other, besides the fact that they are a bunch of tight-fisted jerks who aren't willing to pay people what they agreed, but I don't think that anyone else besides Peter Jackson has the juice to make this film with the same quality and depth as the original films. That, coupled with the fact that he already has the digital and physical properties necessary to start production makes him the logical choice.
//--- John ---//
Very well put. One thing that struck me after studying German for a while is that, much like "sit" and "set" or "lie" and "lay" are intransitive/transitive verb pairs differentiated by the central vowel ("sitzen" and "setzen" / "liegen" and "legen" in the German), so too are "live" and "love" ("leben" and "lieben") -- "love" is the transitive form of "live". So in that sense, loving someone is helping them live well, helping them grow and be healthy. Romance doesn't *have* to enter into this picture, which is why you can just as well love your siblings even despite a very rocky growing up. Which is also why I know that I'm loving my wife the most not when I'm feeling all lovey-dovey, but when she's annoying the crap out of me or I'm pissed as hell at her, but *still* try my damnedest to make things work.
Love is work. Marriage is work. And the truer measure of how much you love your partner/spouse doesn't happen during the easy times -- it's how you behave and how you work at it during the rough times, even if you happen to hate each other's guts right at that moment. *That's* when you fulfill whatever promises or vows you've made.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."