Lord of the Rings: Gaming giant Embracer has picked up the film rights and more
As well as the Hobbit rights
The Lord of the Rings franchise has been constantly at the center of online conversation lately, thanks in part to Amazon’s upcoming series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Now, however, another surprising announcement came to shake up the entertainment industry, after the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit , two of Tolkien’s most important IPs, passed into the hands of the Embracer Group.
Going into details, Embracer announced the acquisition of Middle-earth Enterprises . This is the company that owns the rights to the films, TV series and everything else related to Tolkien’s works, including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
At this point it is worth mentioning that Middle-earth Enterprises was a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood studio that in 1976 bought all the rights to everything related to Tolkien’s works, apart from the publication of these books as such. ‘ of these, for which HarperCollins is responsible to this day.
This means that all upcoming games, all movies, all series and everything else related to The Lord of the Rings is done under a temporary license from Middle-earth Enterprises, which for example had allowed Warner Bros. to create the films with Peter Jackson. The acquisition by Embracer does not necessarily affect all these projects and agreements that have already been made.
However, the company emphasized that it wants to explore other opportunities for new films based on beloved characters , such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel and Eowyn, while it wants to give fans the opportunity to continue to explore the universe through other experiences . and more merchandise.
For the time being, the final amount that Embracer had to pay for the acquisition in question has not been disclosed.
Who is Embracer?
In case you don’t know, Embracer is one of the largest companies in the gaming industry, owning THQ Nordic (Darksiders, Destroy All Humans!, etc.), Saber Interactive (Evil Dead: The Game, World War Z, et al.), Koch Media and Deep Silver (Saints Row, Metro, Dead Island, Chivalry, et al.), Gearbox Entertainment (Borderlands), Dark Horse Comics, Coffee Stain (Valheim , Goat Simulator, etc.) and many more subsidiaries, with a total of over 100 studios (!) and 14 thousand employees in 45 different countries.
In fact, Embracer has agreed to add Square Enix’s western studios to its team, acquiring Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider IP, as well as Eidos-Montréal and Deus Ex.
