Moviemaker Saul Zaentz is launching a lawsuit against New Line Cinema. Zaentz made a hybrid live action-animated version of Lord of the Rings in 1978. He’d acquired the rights to the LOTR novels and The Hobbit and later licensed them to Miramax, who licensed them to New Line. So he feels he should get a share of the newer LOTR trilogy of movies, which Peter Jackson directed. (Several actors from New Zealand who also appeared in Jackson’s movies.)

Jackson himself recently settled with New Line. He’d had a lawsuit against them, claiming they’d underpaid him commissions on his LOTR movies. Everything’s hugs and kisses now, and Jackson will executive produce (not direct) two Hobbit movies (based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit novel), which predate the Rings books. Filming will start immediately.

Zaentz himself produced some acclaimed films, including Goya’s Ghosts, The English Patient, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Mosquito Coast (executive producer), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The video clip below is from The English Patient.

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