GigaOM » The Hobbit

Tolkien estate sues Warner Brothers over Lord of the Rings digital rights

Laura Hazard Owen — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:01:23 +0000

J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate and publisher HarperCollins are suing Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema and the Saul Zaentz Company for infringing copyright on Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The complaint, which was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, claims that Warner Brothers has “engaged in a continuing and escalating pattern of usurping rights to which they are not entitled,” for example, developing gambling games, downloadable video games and slot machines. They seek an estimated $80 million in damages and an injunction against Warner Brothers. (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters on December 14.)

When Tolkien’s estate sold Warner Brothers the film rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in 1969, the suit alleges, it granted “limited merchandising rights” for “articles of tangible personal property” (“figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing, and the like”) but not digital rights. However, the complaint says, in recent years Warner Brothers has developed, licensed and sold “downloadable video games based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, available only by downloading and/or access via the Internet, via mobile apps, tablet apps or other similar digital distribution channels, or through other online interconnectivity such as Facebook.”

In addition, the plaintiffs say, Warner Brothers has “begun licensing the production and distribution of gambling games (both over the Internet and in brick-and-mortar casinos) featuring characters and story elements from The Lord of the Rings” — resulting in “irreparable harm to Tolkien’s legacy and reputation and the valuable goodwill generated by his works.”

In 2009, Tolkien’s estate and HarperCollins sued Warner Brothers’ New Line over profits from the Lord of the Rings films. That case settled.

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What’s most precious to The Hobbit? Broadband!

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:54:49 +0000

Shooting and sharing movie footage all over New Zealand makes for connectivity challenges, but the crew of The Hobbit is making do. But not with magic; heck, even a powerful wizard such as Gandalf has limitations.

Instead, portable satellite dishes and more than six kilometers of cable (so far) provide the mobile broadband and IT solutions. Jump to the 4:35 mark of this behind the scenes video to get a brief peek at how this is working and what it’s used for:

Even though the movie takes place in the Third Age of Middle Earth, in this day and age, hobbits, dwarves and wizards need their connectivity for Facebook and such. So the crew has wireless access during off-times. More important is how broadband equips the camera and production crew to work while mobile.

Footage can be captured on set in one location and then beamed directly to a central area for directors to view. If the scene isn’t quite right, it can quickly be adjusted and reshot as needed. Given that multiple crews are working in various locations across New Zealand, broadband is enabling directors to get even from afar the exact shots they envision. Not even Gollum could be upset about that.

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Peter Jackson revs up Hobbit fanboys with production diaries

Liz Shannon Miller — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 07:01:34 +0000

In December 2012, Lord of the Rings fans will finally see the release of the long-awaited The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, part one of director Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel. Given how beloved Jackson’s adaptation of the Rings trilogy was, it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say this is one of the most anticipated movies of the next few years. But if you want some proof, all you have to do is visit Peter Jackson on Facebook.

There, for the last six months, Jackson (with presumably some help from the Hobbit production team) has been sporadically posting 10-minute video diaries from the set of the production — essentially, the sort of stuff that you find on the special edition DVDs, except they first started appearing 20 months before the first movie even comes out.

The first diary is relatively unfocused — a hodgepodge of Jackson attending production meetings and taking viewers on a tour of the sets in the lead-up to the first day of production — though it does include off-the-cuff riffing with Sir Ian McKellan, which is never a bad thing.

The three subsequent diaries are somewhat more focused: The second, posted July 8, covers what the crew will be doing during a break in production as well as Jackson and his team doing location scouting, while the third, posted July 20, features Jackson freaking out over shooting at the historic Pinewood Studios and the cast and crew’s favorite moments from the first few months of shooting.

The fourth, which came out just last week, is all about the 3-D camera technology behind the film. If you really like learning about camera rigs and frame rates, you’re in luck! You also learn that Jackson has named the 16 cameras being used to shoot the movie after family members, dogs and Beatles, though, which is quite charming.

As default host of the diaries, Peter Jackson is actually quite adorable. As many others have observed, he’s probably the closest you’ll ever come to seeing a real hobbit in the wild, and his fanboy joy at having the chance to make these films is palpable.

While using Facebook as a distribution platform means that embedding is impossible, multiple reposts of the videos have appeared on YouTube, racking up hundreds of thousands of views thanks to embedding by blogs like Io9.

But the videos are still obviously popular on Facebook; after less than a day online, Video no. 4 had accumulated over 11,000 “likes,” and past videos sport similar numbers. In short, it’s proving to be a brilliant way to keep buzz alive for a film that won’t be in theaters for another 13 months. Not every project would lend itself to this kind of treatment — I doubt anyone would care this much about the production of, say, Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist — but when the making of the film is almost as epic as the film itself, it’s quite deserved.

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