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Originally Posted by Sr. Mints
The more I learn about the rights breakdown, the more annoyed I get about it. These days I tend to avoid details like that as I would potholes along Northmount Drive, so it was a bit of a surprise going in - especially after the sum Amazon paid for the rights. I assumed they went all-in.
I'm struggling to think of a modern rights acquisition as fractured LOTR. Marvel parcelling off IPs to different studios in the late 90s, I guess. And more recently didn't Warner Bros have issues with DC about a decade ago when trying to get their DCEU rolling?
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It all seems pretty misguided to me too. This Amazon deal, was likely the pinnacle the Tolkein estate was going to receive. The Hobbit movies still made a lot of cash, but had pretty wanning support, and that was a much bigger and more popular property than the anything besides the LOTR. This also isn't Star Wars. People are not buying action figures of obscure characters from the Silmarillion in large numbers.
If the goal is not financial and to maintain the integrity of the works fracturing them into bits seems like the exact opposite approach.
Whatever the motivation, if Amazon's show isn't insanely popular no major studio is going to be throwing another 9 figure cheque at the Tolkeins to acquire the Silmarillion, or any other, rights.
Edit:
Just looked at the copyright info. Many of Tolkein's works will begin to hit public domain in the 2030s. However, the Silmarillion won't hit public domain until much later (2090s), as it was co-written by his son. Still seems a bit silly. Once again, I can't see anyone paying extra for the Silmarillion, when they can just use LOTR and the Hobbit for free.