Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Nov 14, 2014 15:59:38 GMT -6
deadline.com/2014/11/warner-bros-wins-hobbit-profits-battle-over-weinsteins-1201284644/
The arbitrator in the legal battle over Middle Earth money made his decision today, and Bob and Harvey Weinstein were not the lucky ones. Warner Bros has won the fight over profits from The Hobbit sequels, I have learned, after the Weinsteins filed a $75 million lawsuit late last year that was eventually moved behind closed doors. Contacted by Deadline, Warner Bros had no comment on the arbitration ruling.
Last December, the Weinstens and Mirmax filed a breach of contract complaint against WB Entertainment and New Line Cinema claiming that they were owed big bucks from the property they helped develop back in the 1990s. “Warner’s position is simply an improper attempt to deprive the people originally responsible for hugely successful films being made from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien of their right to share in revenue from two of the three filmed installments of Tolkien’s The Hobbit,” said the dense 8-page filing. Of course, WB took a very different stance over a property that has come with other legal troubles and big big franchise profits. “Fifteen years ago Miramax, run by the Weinstein brothers, sold its rights in The Hobbit to New Line,” the company said in a statement after the brothers and Mirmax filed their complaint. “No amount of trying to rewrite history can change that fact. They agreed to be paid only on the first motion picture based on The Hobbit. And that’s all they’re owed.”
Timing has also proved a factor in all this. Last year’s complaint came just days before the Peter Jackson helmed The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug debuted. Today’s decision comes just over a month before The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies opens on December 17.
After the initial filing of the complaint last year, there was the usual jockeying for position on both sides. Eventually, as WB and New Line had always, insisted, it went before a mutually chosen arbitrator. And now the matter is seemingly done.
The arbitrator in the legal battle over Middle Earth money made his decision today, and Bob and Harvey Weinstein were not the lucky ones. Warner Bros has won the fight over profits from The Hobbit sequels, I have learned, after the Weinsteins filed a $75 million lawsuit late last year that was eventually moved behind closed doors. Contacted by Deadline, Warner Bros had no comment on the arbitration ruling.
Last December, the Weinstens and Mirmax filed a breach of contract complaint against WB Entertainment and New Line Cinema claiming that they were owed big bucks from the property they helped develop back in the 1990s. “Warner’s position is simply an improper attempt to deprive the people originally responsible for hugely successful films being made from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien of their right to share in revenue from two of the three filmed installments of Tolkien’s The Hobbit,” said the dense 8-page filing. Of course, WB took a very different stance over a property that has come with other legal troubles and big big franchise profits. “Fifteen years ago Miramax, run by the Weinstein brothers, sold its rights in The Hobbit to New Line,” the company said in a statement after the brothers and Mirmax filed their complaint. “No amount of trying to rewrite history can change that fact. They agreed to be paid only on the first motion picture based on The Hobbit. And that’s all they’re owed.”
Timing has also proved a factor in all this. Last year’s complaint came just days before the Peter Jackson helmed The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug debuted. Today’s decision comes just over a month before The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies opens on December 17.
After the initial filing of the complaint last year, there was the usual jockeying for position on both sides. Eventually, as WB and New Line had always, insisted, it went before a mutually chosen arbitrator. And now the matter is seemingly done.