It’s been revealed that the movie rights to The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit are currently up for sale, and we’re wondering whether Amazon Studios will be buying them up.
The movies based on the JRR Tolkien fantasy works saw an unprecedented wave of Hollywood success in the early 2000’s under the direction of Peter Jackson.
The Lord Of The Rings trilogy won countless Academy Awards and was a box office smash for New Line and parent company, Warner Bros. Pictures and put Jackson into the cream of crop of directors.
The company which actually owns the rights for the movies, Saul Zaentz Company, has decided to sell its stake with investment Bank, ACF, on board to facilitate a deal around Hollywood.
With Amazon and Amazon Prime releasing their The Lord Of The Rings: Ring Of Power TV series a huge amount of expectation is that the giant will purchase the movie rights in this sale.
The gaming rights are also up for grabs (who can remember the fantastic Return Of The King PlayStation 2 game.. anyone? Just me?) despite a new game Lord Of The Rings: Gollum releasing later this year.
Any deal will include limited rights for movies, merchandising, live events and theme parks along with video games.
Who has the money to buy The Lord Of The Rings’ movie rights?
Read more: Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings TV Series Might Adapt Parts Of The Movie
There’s no news on whether the company would be open to separate deals for certain aspects, but you could imagine at least if you were purchasing film rights, you’d want to pick up the lucrative theme park rights too.
Which leaves the door wide open for someone like Universal, Warners or Disney to come in with an offer.
Warner Bros makes the most sense, already having been involved in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy from Jackson as the parent company for New Line.
The films, including the Hobbit trilogy are the highest grossing box office releases from New Line and it seems for studio building up its own streaming service, HBO Max, this is an easy decision.
They already maintain some film development rights due to the previous deal they had but the substantial aspect of this deal Variety reports was lost last year, due to Warners not making any future developments.
A Lord Of The Rings theme park attraction?
Credit: New Line Cinema
Read more: Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Series Title Revealed
The movie rights have already been under litigation for a number of years so any deal may not be as clear cut as it seems.
Certainly, properties such as this are a rare commodity in this day and age, but will Disney be tempted to make a move, considering a Lord Of The Rings theme park attraction could be a winning meal ticket.
This is certainly a deal to keep an eye on…
Who do you think should get the rights?
Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!
What do you make of this story? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages!
And if you enjoy listening to film podcasts, why not check out our podcasts, Small Screen Stories and Small Screen Film Club wherever you get your podcasts!
There are no comments
Add yours