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The whole truth about the relationship between the new Lord of the Rings movies and Peter Jackson
After Amazon, responsible for the recent prequel series, the studio of the legendary film trilogy, Warner, is also returning to the party to make new films for one of the most important fantasy films of all time. Now who will be the Lord of the Rings?
In February, the media giant Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would return and warm up the Lord of the Rings cinematic universe in collaboration with the New Line Cinema studio and the Embracer group that owns the film rights. Thanks to the multi-year contract, he comes out with new films - not only to the delight of Tolkien fans, but of course also to the shareholders. After all, the news was timed by the company to announce the last quarter's financial results and their loss of 2.1 billion dollars.
However, what may spoil the taste of fans is that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio wants to build a huge movie universe.
Something that can even compete with franchises such as Star Wars or Marvel, where the past years have also been spent building connected film and television universes.
Where else is the bad taste? At Amazon, of course. The increasingly active entertainment department of the e-commerce titan brought the world's most expensive TV series to date, The Rings of Power, which is also based on Tolkien's world, for no less than one billion dollars.
After the Game of Thrones prequel series, the surprisingly successful House of Dragons, Amazon can already see Warner as a direct competitor. Yes, but there's Warner's secret weapon - if he deploys it, he can gain a significant advantage in the battle for Middle-earth.
Now who has what Lord of the Rings rights?
In the history of the world created by J. R. R. Tolkien, perhaps only its copyright network is more difficult to see. We will not tell you about the licenses of acquisitions, film-serial-video game adaptations from the beginning. But the events of the previous year perfectly exemplify the entanglement and at the same time the boundaries of legal disputes.
Saul Zaentz Co., which owns the Middle-earth rights (including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film rights, video game rights, live event rights, and theme park rights), launched one of the most high-profile rights acquisition deals last year related to the Tolkien world. In February 2022, Zaentz announced be: then he would be happy to part with the property promised to be a Hollywood gold mine for an amount of around 2 billion dollars.
But aren't the film rights with Warner-New Line Cinema, the duo that filmed The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit? Yes and no. Although the studio was able to make six films a success, Zaentz cited the expiration of the licenses. That said, since Warner hasn't been actively involved in adapting new Lord of the Rings films for the big screen, they believe the rights have reverted to their original owners.
The two companies fought a long litigation battle over the rights, and not for the first time. At the beginning of the 2000s, the legal dispute was over the profits from the original film trilogy, in which a third party, the Tolkien Estate, which manages the rights to the books, entered as a separate lawsuit, and even the director, the multiple Oscar winner Peter Jackson too.
In order to retain the rights to the characters and stories of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Warner even announced an animated movie with the subtitle The War of the Rohirrim as a loophole. This was not accepted by Zaentz during the litigation, and Warner later suspended production on the film.
A New Hope - Embracer steps in
The tumultuous relationship between Zaentz and Warner was eventually ended by a change of ownership of the rights. After the announcement in early 2022 (which was carefully planned by Zaentz, since the hype surrounding the arrival of the Amazon series could significantly raise the price tag of the ownership), the news arrived in mid-August: the new owner of Middle-earth Enterprises, which manages the rights to Tolkien's oeuvre, is the Swedish video game and media conglomerate , the Embracer group. The purchase price was not disclosed during the announcement, but according to some industry sources, it may have been around the previously mentioned two billion dollars.
The launch of the Swedish Embracer came as a huge surprise to the industry. Many were expecting a Hollywood company to lead Middle-earth Enterprises, and even more were perhaps looking towards Amazon. In the days before the presentation of Rings of Power, such a news would have definitively knocked down the supporters of the company giant's studio, Amazon Studios. In addition, it would have offered a huge strategic opportunity to the company of the billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is said to treat The Lord of the Rings as a matter of his heart, so that their billion-dollar series could only be the entry point to more Lord of the Rings content. They would certainly have managed to get significantly more subscribers to their side.
Amazon, on the other hand, not only missed the jump, but can slowly follow the realization of a nightmare scenario with external eyes. Unlike its legal predecessor (and true to its name, the "embracer"), Embracer entered into a confidential relationship with the new management of Warner, which was slowly transforming itself, as a result of which they announced last week their multi-year cooperation and the arrival of the new Lord of the Rings films.
Why should Amazon be cold about this news?
In order to know this, it is important to take a closer look at the rights - and learn what Amazon owns. In 2017, the company giant Bezos bought a small slice of the writer's world from the Tolkien Estate, which owns the rights to the books, from HarperCollins, which publishes the books, and (as a twist of fate) from Warner Bros. This smaller slice represents the Second Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth story. According to the background story related to the world of Lord of the Rings, the era spanning 3,441 years begins with the fall of the dark Morgoth - and ends with the first fall of Sauron.
The rights concerning Warner, on the other hand, already belong to the period of the Third Age. This period also covers the history of audience favorite characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn and the Hobbits, the events of the War of the One Ring and The Hobbit.
This already puts Amazon in an unpleasant situation. Tolkien wrote very little about the Second Age, and the scope of the conflicts was clearly secondary compared to the original two stories (The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit books).
In the meantime, due to its renewed role as a competitor, the studio has to pay particular attention to which direction and with which elements it directs its prequel series The Rings of Power, for which it previously promised fans a playing time of fifty hours, i.e. roughly five seasons. Amazon would love to blur the line between the two separate franchises with its creative decisions. For example, he asked Howard Shore, who composed the brilliant scores of the original trilogy, for the theme music of the series.
The question is whether the original plans will be carried out this way
Another main cause of headaches is receiving rings of power. Amazon Studios, which immediately jumped into the filming of the second season after the debut of the first episodes, has so far made a positive statement about the numbers of the streaming platform. According to Amazon, The Rings of Power is the most watched show, with at least one hundred million viewers and with new subscriber interest surpassing the next four series on their top list combined, it is a clear success. At the same time, the critical and fan consensus did not welcome the story management solutions very well.
Series creator Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne also admitted that the series really didn't start smoothly, reassuring the fans that they promise a better, bigger second season. However, it is questionable whether this will change the perception of the series. And if not, will they really go through with their five-year, multi-billion dollar plan. Especially if, in the meantime, the shadow of the new competitor is cast on them, whose more successful attempts could dwarf Amazon's actions.
A franchise above all else
Aside from the slightly nauseating Disney-Star Wars example, Warner is starting from pole position for the win. As the guardian of the rights to the adaptation of the well-known and beloved Termadkor, as well as the legacy of the original film trilogy known as a critical and box office success, he takes up the gauntlet against Amazon. And it looks like he might have one more hideously important gun fact on his side: Peter Jackson.
Jackson, who bagged 17 Oscars and then directed the Hobbit trilogy, and his two acclaimed co-writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, were previously courted by Amazon. However, the new leaders who came to the head of Amazon Studios in the meantime interrupted the negotiation process, and the Jacksons could not see a single script. What's more, according to THR's information, they were especially frustrated that many mistakenly associated the new series with them.
The paper now understands that Jackson and Walsh are currently in discussions with the studio duo Warner-New Line.
The signing of the Jacksons would be a huge opportunity for Warner, in fact, thanks to their expertise, The Lord of the Rings became one of the world's biggest critical and commercial successes. along with Titanic, he wrote himself down in film history as an absolute record holder. In addition, the three cinemas worked out quite nicely for the Warner-New Line duo. They ran with a budget of $281 million and grossed $2.99 billion between 2001-2003.
There will be some head-scratching at Warner, too
However, Peter Jackson's name is by no means a guarantee of success. The second trilogy of the director-producer, who was initially reluctant to direct the Hobbit films, but then gave his all, was not received with nearly as much enthusiasm by the audience as by the critics. Although the fall was far from the films that debuted between 2012 and 2014, their profitability has already dropped significantly: The Hobbit trilogy brought in $2.93 billion with a budget of roughly $745 million (ignoring ten years of inflation or higher ticket prices for 3D screenings). In addition to the more depressing reviews, the trilogy did not take home a single Oscar statuette.
Warner faces another problem. Namely, that in contrast to Star Wars, which is extensive but not limited by its background history, or Marvel, which has an extremely large amount of adaptable material, the extreme detail of the Tolkien world is intended to support the two main stories that have already been filmed.
Any kind of deviation from the basic material threatens with an army of fans foaming at the mouth to defend their preciousness.
