re: #105 Targetpractice

Indeed. Days I look more and more forward to sane copyright laws.

Refresh my post for an update…

New Line’s apparent dicking around with the Tolkien estate (and the fact that they tried to pull the same old “Hollywood accounting” BS on Peter Jackson with the LotR trilogy) were the main reasons for the delays.

Quoth the Wiki:

South Canterbury Finance invested $30 million in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, only to have New Line produce accounts showing that the movies did not make a profit, but made “horrendous losses”. According to SCF CEO Allan Hubbard: “We found it surprising because it was one of the biggest box office success of all time.”[15] (The three films rank 5th, 18th and 25th on the list of Highest Grossing Movies.)

Fifteen actors are suing New Line Cinema claiming that they have never received their 5% of revenue from merchandise sold in relation to the movie, which contains their likeness.[16] Similarly, the Tolkien estate sued New Line, claiming that their contract entitled them to 7.5% of the gross receipts of the $6 billion hit.[17]

Peter Jackson’s production company Wingnut Films questioned New Line Cinema’s accounting methods, bringing in an outside auditor as allowed by the contract, and eventually sued New Line.[18] New Line executive Robert Shaye took great offense, declared that they would never work with Jackson again.[19]

Saul Zaentz also has an ongoing dispute with New Line Cinema over profits from The Lord of the Rings films. The dispute began shortly after the release of the films. In December 2007 Variety reported that Zaentz was also suing New Line Cinema, alleging that the studio has refused to make records available so that he can confirm his profit-participation statements are accurate.[20]