Yesterday Variety posted a long story on the move to convert older titles to 3D. Basically a lot of tests have been done, but only Disney is definitely moving ahead, planning to release the first two Toy Story films retooled for 3D, with a third entry coming made in 3D from scratch. It’s also redoing Beauty and the Beast in 3D.

What about the insistent rumors that the LOTR trilogy will be given the conversion treatment?

According to Variety, “Most of the industry hasn’t addressed the topic of 3-D conversions in public, but that hasn’t stopped rumors from flying. One website shows the entire ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy in line for conversion, but New Line insists the company has no current plans for it. Paramount, which would be involved in any ‘Transformers’ or ‘Titanic’ re-release, declined to comment on the possibility.”

The article offers a good rundown of the situation and explains the obstacles to making over older films into 3D versions. It costs a lot, for a start, and the whole business of installing digital projectors (necessary for the new 3D processes) in theaters is going slower than many had hoped. Already there aren’t enough 3D screens to hold the number of films coming out in that format. The wonderful Coraline got forced out of theaters all too soon, and not because it wasn’t making money. The economic turndown isn’t helping the process of installing new equipment.

Whether the new push to innovate 3D will actually work is still up in the air. For now, I doubt there will be any move to issue a 3D version of LOTR.

As an ongoing franchise, the Lord of the Rings trilogy has a much lower profile than it used to. It’s still spinning money for its owners, though. Variety ran a brief article today on a big sale Warner Bros. International Television Distribution has made to RTL Television. RTL is the largest private commercial TV station in Germany.

It’s a multi-year deal for over 200 films and TV series. Among the upcoming films included in the pact are the Harry Potter finale, the two-part Deathly Hallows film. Quite a few older movies are involved as well, including the LOTR trilogy, Rush Hour 2 (both New Line films), and Ocean’s Eleven.

Of course, a film doesn’t have to be part of a franchise to show up in perpetuity on TV and home video of various sorts. I just bring it up as a reminder that LOTR is still an active franchise, however firmly in the past it may seem to many fans.

In Chapter 9 of The Frodo Franchise, I discuss the effects the Lord of the Rings trilogy has had on the film industry. A major part of that discussion relates to the extraordinary boost that LOTR gave to the international independent and foreign-language film market. For those who might look down their noses at the film as just another Hollywood blockbuster franchise, it should be a real eye-opener to see how the various foreign distributors around the world, most of them relatively small independent firms, benefited and what they did with the profits. more »

I guess no one saw this one coming! Today the Tolkien Trust, a charity run by the estate of J. R. R. Tolkien, along with his long-time British publisher, HarperCollins, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court. The complaint is that New Line has failed to pay the author’s estate its share of the revenues from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Most of the online reports on this news appear to derive from a news conference or press release from the Tolkien trust, quoting Steven Maier, the U.K. lawyer handling the matter, and Bonnie Eskenazi, the American counsel who filed the suit. (Two basic versions of the story were put out by the Associated Press and Marketwire.) The reports differ in their details, however, with some reporters updating to add information. I’ll pull together what I’ve so far been able to find out so far. more »

On September 20, The Hollywood Reporter and The Dominion Post (Wellington’s newspaper) broke the story that progress has finally been made in the lawsuit Peter Jackson brought against New Line Cinema way back in March of 2005. The Dominion Post site is subscription only, but immediately the story was on stuff.co.nz, a New Zealand news site. (The piece is dated Sepember 21, but of course they’re a day ahead of us.) TheOneRing.net quickly picked up on this, and a few other sites have noted the judge’s decision. On September 21, the Los Angeles Times posted the longest and most informative news story I’ve seen so far. Oddly, Variety has not mentioned the decision. more »

Ever vigilant, TheOneRing.net has posted a link to a brief story on Stuff.co.nz, a major online Kiwi news source. That story proclaims that “Peter Jackson has won the first round in his fight with Hollywood studio New Line over the profits from The Lord of the Rings.”

It continues, “A judge has fined New Line, the film trilogy’s financial backer, $125,000 ($NZ169,000) for failing to turn over court-ordered documents in the case.”

New Line has also been given three weeks to produce relevant audits of its files.

Up to now there had been no public announcement of what damages Jackson is seeking, but now his lawyers have told the New York Times that New Line may owe him as much as $100 million.

As more information about this decision emerges, I’ll try to sort out the implications.