Embracer Group acquires rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit via Middle-earth Enterprises
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Video game conglomerate Embracer Group has agreed to acquire the intellectual property rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit literary works by J.R.R Tolkien.
It will do so by acquiring a secondary fights holder, Middle-earth Enterprises, which acquired the rights to motion pictures, video games, board games, and other rights back in the 1970s. Peter Jackson was able to make his Oscar-winning movies based on licenses that went back to Middle-earth Enterprises.
The price was not disclosed. But it appears that the book rights remain with the Tolkien estate, which includes the grandchildren and other family members who are the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien, who died in 1973. I also believe that rights to some works, like The Simarillion, the prequel to the stories in The Lord of the Rings, are also retained by the estate. Yet the appendix of The Lord of the Rings has some of this material.
Now it’s a new age, and video games may have more potential than movies. In recognition of that, Sweden’s Embracer Group, through its wholly owned subsidiary Freemode, has entered into an agreement to acquire Middle-earth Enterprises, a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, which owns a vast intellectual property catalogue and worldwide rights to motion pictures, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions relating to the iconic fantasy literary works The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as matching rights in other Middle-earth-related literary works authorized by the Tolkien Estate and
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