New Line sued by Tolkien Trust and HarperCollins
12/02/2008 . Source: Jessica Martin 
The Tolkien Trust have filed a legal action against New Line Cinema for what the trust claims is New Line's failure to pay a gross profit participation in the three films based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The trustees of the estate of JRR Tolkien and HarperCollins Publishers - also the publishers of fantasy author Stephen Hunt and The Court of the Air - are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Sounds like the trust are looking to hand New Line their arse on a plate. Buy The Hobbit in the USA - or Buy The Hobbit in the UK  The suit was filed yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The trustees' UK lawyer, Steven Maier, of Manches LLP, told SFcrowsnest.com, "The Tolkien trustees do not file lawsuits lightly, and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their claims out of court. But in this case, New Line has left them no option at all. New Line has not paid the plaintiffs even one penny of its contractual share of gross receipts despite the billions of dollars of gross revenue generated by these wildly successful motion pictures. To make matters worse, to date New Line has even prevented the plaintiffs from auditing the last two films of the series. The trustees are very aggrieved by New Line's arrogance."
The complaint seeks, among other things, in excess of $150 million in compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages, and a declaration from the Court that the plaintiffs have a right to terminate any further rights New Line may have to the Tolkien works under the agreements, including The Hobbit, due to what they claim are the serious and material nature of the breach of the agreements.
Bonnie Eskenazi, the trustees' US counsel who filed the complaint, added, "New Line has brought new meaning to the phrase creative accounting. I cannot imagine how on earth New Line will argue to a jury that these films could gross literally billions of dollars, and yet the creator's heirs, who are entitled to a share of gross receipts, don't get a penny."
Tolkien Trust is a UK registered charity that has made grants to charitable causes totaling $8 million in the last five years. The Lord of the Rings films produced by New Line are among the most financially successful films created by Hollywood and were released in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively. The cumulative worldwide gross receipts to date total nearly $6 billion.
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