By ALEX VEIGA
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The estate of "Lord of the Rings" creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing the film studio that released the trilogy based on his books, claiming the company failed to pay a cut of gross profits.
The writer's estate, a charity dubbed The Tolkien Trust, and original "Lord of the Rings" publisher HarperCollins filed the lawsuit against New Line Cinema on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
It claims New Line was required to pay 7.5 percent of gross receipts from the films to Tolkien's estate and the other plaintiffs. The lawsuit estimates the films have reaped nearly $6 billion combined.
24 comments:
What the fuck is New Line's problem, anyway? I'm getting unreasonably pissed off. Pay the fucking artists, you corporate scumbags! I hate this kind of chicanery; it's so pointlessly destructive and stupid.
"The lawsuit estimates the films have reaped nearly $6 billion combined."
My God! Is that more than the Star Wars films?
I love when Jordan gets pissed!
Yeah; all six Star Wars movies grossed about $4.5 billion total, as follows:
797,900,000
534,200,000
572,700,000
924,288,297
656,695,615
848,470,577
(I don't feel like typing the names of the movies; I've listed their grosses in chronological order. Notice the huge dropoff after Phantom Menace.)
Man, that was quick! Thanks, man. I had no idea that the Rings trilogy made that much dough. Is that the most ever for a film franchise? What about all 21 Bond films?
I'm not going to look up those numbers, because I don't feel like it, but you can just tell they make an obscene fortune or they wouldn't work so hard to stay in the game.
I read an Onion interview with John Cleese, where he talked about not being invited back for Casino Royale (and about how Samantha Bond wasn't invited back as Moneypenny either) but that they must have done something right because the flick made six hundred million and the two Brosnan flicks that Cleese did only made like three hundred million each.
I'm still so pissed at New Line. It's like that fucking evil prick Michael Eisner bitching about how the strike is "stupid" because "there's no revenue to be made" from the digital media. Like we were all born yesterday.
Here's a list of all the Bond films, I'm too lazy to add them up but it's lot,
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond
Jordan and jpx, both looking at lists of movie grosses and dozing off.
Can you tell that most of my patients cancelled today? God, a little single-digit weather and New England shuts down.
I'm in the middle of King's latest, Duma Key and I'm digging it so far.
so far.
Really? That's cool. I really liked Cell. You really have no idea what you're getting with King these days (since they seem to just publish his first drafts).
I forgot to say how much I like "The Raft," which you mentioned in reference to The Ruins.
I'm having such a blast watching TOS episodes, thanks to you guys and the stuff I wrote before. I'm delighted that JSP enjoyed ("fucking loved") Miri. It shows that he's in the right frame of mind.
I hope he continues to comment here about the TOS episodes he's watching!
He's definitely been more miss than hit over the past decade. Not including single short stories, which I normally love,
Duma Key (good so far)
Blaze (a patient told me it was weak, I haven't read it yet)
Lisey's Story (same patient told me to skip at all cost)
The Cell (half-way through)
Black House (haven't read)
The Colorado Kid (so annoyed by the ending I'm choking on my own rage)
Dreamcatcher (hated)
Desperation (okay)
Everything's Eventual (loved)
From a Buick 8 (grew bored and quit halfway through)
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gorden (liked it a lot)
Hearts in Atlantis (loved)
The Plant (good until he stopped writing it!)
Bag of Bones (boring)
Insomnia (zzzzzzz)
The Regulators (okay)
Your Star Trek reviews have me all jazzed to revisit the series! I think you worry too much that people are going to dismiss it because of the 60s fx. The writing more than makes up for that. The Twilight Zone is the same way for me.
Wow, I just coincidentally came across this from the Stephen King site,
"New Short Story Collection
The title for Stephen's new short story collection has been chosen. It will be titled Just Past Sunset. The publication date and story list are still being finalized but a fall 2008 date is a possibility."
Hooray!
Insomnia (CRAP; couldn't finish it)
Bag of Bones (Exactly the same type of CRAP; couldn't finish it either)
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (totally loved it; very well done, very elegant and skillful)
From a Buick 8 (CRAP)
Everything's Eventual (uneven; occasionally shrill)
Desperation (The first half is absolutely brilliant; then it turns into CRAP)
The Cell (very good; a blast to read, if a bit creaky)
I didn't read any of the others. Hearts in Atlantis intrigues me until I picture Anthony Hopkins groggily peering out from the movie poster and then I lose interest.
We seem to be in agreement on King! Check out Hearts in Atlantis, it's actually 5 stories and I'd say 3 of them are terrific. The one you refer to is good, but it's actually a Dark Tower story in disguise. I enjoyed the first 4 Dark Tower books and I have the last 3 but I feel overwhelmed to begin them. AC read them all in a row last year during Horrorthon!
I've got The Naked Time on deck for tonight!
I haven't quite decided how I'm going to break it to Lauren that Star Trek is about to become a permanant fixture of the household, at least until further notice. I'm convinced she'll love it if only she gives it a fair chance but therein lies the struggle. (She and Spock have much more in common than either of us might care to admit...) Jordan, do you have a recommendation that might hook a skeptical scientist?
I think you worry too much that people are going to dismiss it because of the 60s fx.
I've seen it happen. I was just discussing this with octo last night: I had an annoying co-worker who kept insisting that original Trek was "camp." He wouldn't let it go: he kept saying it was "campy" like Batman (the TV series) and pointed to Shatner's acting and the effects and talking about how "you can't take it seriously." I eventually got irritated and said, "Look, I'm sorry but you don't know what you're talking about. Original Trek is, if anything, unusually earnest and irony-free. It has completely serious and lofty intentions." He just couldn't understand what I was getting at. (If anything, the Trek movies are "campier" than the original series, certainly from an acting perspective.)
How galling that conversation must have been! I don't think I've ever had negative thoughts about the OS fx. In fact, I think they're pretty damn good! I get so caught up in the stories that I don't even notice. Also, I started watching these when I was really young because my dad loves them so much - so I associtate the experience with only positive feelings. As an adult I can appreciate how good the writing is for most of the episodes.
I also wanted to add how much I love the sound effects from Star Trek OS!
Good lord I need to go meet Whirlygirl for coffee. She's going to kill me if she realizes I was late because I was talkin' Trek. Maybe she won't read this (fingers crossed).
Oh, I could go on recommending Trek episodes for days. I came across this comment on IMDB:
DOOMSDAY MACHINE was the first Trek episode I saw, I fell on the floor screaming "OH YEAH!! THIS IS IT FOREVER!!" I could'NT believe the magnitude of its coolness and greatness, I was an instant Trekkie, and I've stayed that way for 40 years!! Made all the early cons, even had a silver & red car painted to look like the USS Enterprise,with "NCC-1701" painted across the hood! All it took was one episode to get me hooked for life, and DOOMSDAY MACHINE was the one that did it! Live Long and Prosper!!
My own first Trek was "The Squire of Gothos," at my friend Alex's house, when I was probably about eight years old. It totally scared me, but I fell hook, line and sinker.
This thread covers The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, James Bond, Stephen King, and Star Trek.
We certainly fit at least one of several stereotypes...
Doomsday Machine has been recommended to me by multiple sources now, I'm sold.
JPX, you just screwed yourself! If Whirleygirl doesn't notice, I'll be sure to point it out.
I just got back from cruising a couple museums and this new Tolkien post has 23 comments?????? You guys are a riot.
I can't understand New Line's deal. How the hell do they expect to get away with crap like that?
I knew one producer who would lie all kinds of ways to try to increase his profit margin, but what's happening here takes such a colossal amount of misfeasance I can't even figure it out. "Oh, that forty-five million dollar check we were supposed to write...where did I put that?"
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