'Lord of the Rings', 'Hobbit' media rights going on block - Variety
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images News

A raft of lucrative media rights to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and other J.R.R. Tolkien books are going on the auction block, and that means some media companies (and tech wanna-be media moguls) are about to shell out some serious money if lawsuits don't get in the way.
The owners of the holdings, the Saul Zaentz Co., will sell an array of movie, merchandising, video gaming, theme park and live event rights to the Tolkien works in an auction projected to draw at least $2 billion in bids, Variety reports.
The sum could go much higher, if Amazon Prime Video's (NASDAQ:AMZN) spending is any indication. The company spent nearly half a billion dollars to make just season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, its long-awaited streaming series debuting Sept. 2. And it's already committed to a second season of the show.
Amazon seems likely to pursue more rights in this auction. Music/film entrepreneur Saul Zaentz acquired the Tolkien rights in 1976, with a carve-out for the right to make a TV series of eight episodes or more; that's what Amazon used for its deal with Tolkien's estate.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. (NYSE:T) maintains some film development rights through its New Line Cinema, which marked global success with Peter Jackson's 2001-2003 film trilogy, and Warner has announced plans for a new animated theatrical feature based on the story. But litigation seems likely as Zaentz Co. (which sued Warner Bros. over the trilogy) believes live-action film rights reverted to them.
The Tolkien estate and publisher HarperCollins also sued Warner Bros. several times over profits from the three Lord of the Rings films and three Hobbit films.