Middle-earth Enterprises

Middle-earth Enterprises, formerly known as Tolkien Enterprises, is a trading name for a division of the Saul Zaentz Company (SZC) based in Berkeley, California which owns the worldwide exclusive rights to certain elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's two most famous literary works; The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. These elements include the titles of the works, the names of characters contained within as well as the names of places, objects and events within them, and certain short phrases and sayings from the works.^[1]

Background and history

J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sold the film, stage and merchandising rights of those works to United Artists in 1968, who in turn sold them to the Saul Zaentz Company in 1976 which licenses them through Tolkien Enterprises.

In 1978, Tolkien Enterprises and the distributor United Artists funded an animated version of The Lord of the Rings directed by Ralph Bakshi, which covered approximately the first half of the Lord of the Rings.

In 1999, the company severed their licensing agreement with ICE for role-playing games set in Middle-earth after ICE ceased developing new products for this line. This contributed to ICE's filing for bankruptcy in 2001. Tolkien Enterprises then made a new licensing agreement with Decipher Inc. for their Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.

In 2001–2003 Peter Jackson filmed the whole Lord of the Rings under license from TE, which went on to win 17 Oscars and numerous other international and national awards.

In 2002 a video game The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was produced - based on the licencing of the literary works of Tolkien to Vivendi, which was based on the book, in 2003 The Hobbit video game, which was also produced by Vivendi for a younger age group. At around the same time licensing agreements products relating to the films produced by Peter Jackson were obtained by Electronic Arts, leading to the release of a series of games; starting with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (video game) in 2002. In 2005 EA acquired the rights to produce games based on the literary works as well,^[2] producing further titles up to the 2009 release of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest when the licensing agreement expired.^[3]

In August 2004, Tolkien Enterprises sued New Line Cinema for over $20 million in unpaid royalties, based on the difference between gross and net profits for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and the exact terms of the royalty arrangement between Tolkien Enterprises and New Line Cinema. An out-of-court settlement was reached in August 2005, however details were not released.

At the end of 2008 the license agreement between Electronic Arts and Tolkien Enterprises expired, and the rights to develop video games passed to Warner Brothers.^[4]

In 2010 the name was changed to Middle-earth Enterprises.^[1]

Licences

As of April 2009, the company's current licensees are as follows.^[5]

• Adaptations:
  • New Line Cinema - Film rights.
  • Kevin Wallace Ltd for a stage production of The Lord of the Rings
• Games
  • Video games:
    • Up to 2009 Electronic Arts - for games based on both books in addition to an official film trilogy license from New Line Cinema.
    • Post 2009 Warner Bros.
    • Turbine, Inc. for an online role-playing game, The Lord of the Rings Online - up to 2014^[6]
  • Other games:
    • Decipher Inc. for the trading card (TCG) and roleplaying games
    • Games Workshop PLC for a range of miniatures, games (The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and Battle of Five Armies) and Battle Games in Middle-earth magazine
    • Game Systems International Ltd. (Games Systems Inc.) for Middle-earth Play-By-Mail released by Game Systems Inc. and the One Ring module of Legends (PBM) released by Harlequin Games.
    • Sophisticated Games for a range of board games
    • Mithril Miniatures for a range of 28 mm scale metal miniatures
    • U.S. Games Systems Inc. - a Lord of the rings based Tarot card deck and game.
• Collectables:
  • Danbury Mint for a variety of related merchandise such as film cells, watches and goblets
  • Lladró Comercial, S.A.
  • Royal Selangor International for a range of pewter goblets, tankards and chess pieces

See also

• Tolkien Estate Hereditary owners of the copyrights to Tolkien's works.
• Category:Middle-earth adaptations including the lists of Category:Middle-earth games, Category:Middle-earth films and others.
• Middle-earth in video games - for a history of video and computer game adaptions, both licensed and unlicensed.
• The Hunt for Gollum a free and unlicenced film.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "About". Middle-earth Enterprises. http://www.middleearth.com/home.html. 
2. ^ Ea Granted Rights to Develop the Lord of the Rings Games Based on J.R.R. Tolkien'S Epic Literary Fiction, 25th July 2005, EA press release gamershell.com
3. ^ IncGamers: Tolkien IP License, 23rd February 2009 incgamers.com
4. ^ Lord of the Rings game rights now at Warner Bros weblogs.variety.com
5. ^ Tolkien enterprises - current licences tolkien-ent.com
6. ^ TURBINE AND TOLKIEN ENTERPRISES EXTEND RELATIONSHIP turbine.com

External links

• Middle-earth Enterprises website