More troubles for New Line Cinema over The Lord of the Rings trilogy (pictured).
From Variety:
The estate of JRR Tolkien and publisher HarperCollins filed a $150 million lawsuit against the studio on Monday
The suit claims the trust has not received any of its gross profit participation payments for the three films based on the "Lord of the Rings" books and seeks both punitive damages and a court declaration that they can terminate any further rights New Line may have to the Tolkien works under the agreements including the upcoming "The Hobbit" flicks.
According to the suit New Line has failed to pay the Tolkien Trust any portion of the gross profit participation (up to 7.5% of the gross) to which they are entitled under their deal, despite the $6 billion in revenue the trilogy has made the studio.
The estate's U.S. Counsel Bonnie Eskenazi:
"New Line has brought new meaning to the phrase 'creative accounting.' I cannot imagine how on earth New Line will argue to a jury that these films could gross literally billions of dollars, and yet the creator's heirs, who are entitled to a share of gross receipts, don't get a penny."
This comes just a couple months after NLC and Peter Jackson settled their own legal fight about profit participation in the "Rings" trilogy.
New Line had no comment.
Guillermo del Toro was recently announced as the Hobbit helmer...What the suit does for his plans is anyone's guess...?
Meantime, Fox filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros claiming they hold the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to Alan Moore's graphic novel "Watchmen".
The film version of the acclaimed book has been underway for several months now--with Zack Snyder calling "Action"...
The suits at Fox claim that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all movie rights to the comics and screenplays. In 1991, Fox assigned some rights via a quitclaim to Largo International with the understanding that the studio held exclusive rights to distribute the first motion picture based on the comic saga
When Largo dismantled, the rights were transferred to film producer Lawrence Gordon.
Under what's known in legal-ease as a "turnaround agreement" between Fox and Gordon, (the man who helped bring Die Hard to the screen), agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he entered into any agreement with another studio or third party to develop or produce Watchmen, among other things.
Fox claims that neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. has paid the buy-out price or advised the studio of any other conditions required under the agreement, including procedures necessary to acquire the rights to Watchmen from Fox.
As I try to wrap my head around the legal mumbo-jumbo from Fox...My first thought is where were they when the film incarnation was announced eons ago...? Will the lawsuit in any way delay the film's March 6th 2009 release...?
Stay Tuned on both fronts...
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