Los Angeles - The estate Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien sued New Line Cinema on Monday for 150 million dollars, claiming the Hollywood studio cheated it out of a share of the profits from the movie trilogy that earned billions of dollars. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles also sought to strip New Line of the right to make any more movies based on Tolkien's work - endangering New Line's plans to produce two Hobbit movies over the next two years.
In its complaint, representatives of the Tolkien's heirs claimed that under a 1969 contract with the studio that held the original rights to the work, the trust and other plaintiffs were entitled to 7.5 of gross receipts, "less certain expenses," from the films and related products. According to the suit, worldwide grosses from the trilogy have reached nearly 6 billion dollars.
The studio declined comment Monday, spokesman Robert Pini said, citing a New Line policy against discussing "matters in litigation."
Bonnie Eskenazi, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the Tolkien Trust and co-plaintiff HarperCollins publishers, said the studio had taken the position that the trust was owed nothing.
"To take the position that a gross participant in a film of that magnitude gets not one penny strikes me as bizarre," said Eskenazi, a partner in the entertainment law firm of Bert Fields.
