Μήνυση του "The Tolkien Trust" κατά της "New Line"

Συντάκτης:DarkChild

Μήνυση υπέβαλλε το ίδρυμα που διαχειρίζεται τα δικαιώματα του J.R.R. Tolkien, εναντίον της New Line Cinema, με το αιτιολογικό πως το στούντιο της οφείλει μεγαλύτερο ποσοστό από τα κέρδη της τριλογίας του Άρχοντα των Δαχτυλιδιών.

Ιδού και η ανακοίνωση του ιδρύματος:

"The trustees of The Tolkien Trust, a British charity, have filed an action against New Line Cinema for its failure to pay a contractually required gross profit participation in the three films based on the world-famous Lord of the Rings trilogy. The trustees of the estate of JRR Tolkien and HarperCollins Publishers are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The suit was filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The Lord of the Rings films produced by New Line are among the most financially successful films ever created by Hollywood and were released in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively. The cumulative worldwide gross receipts to date total nearly $6 billion. Notwithstanding the overwhelming financial success of the films, and the fact that the plaintiffs have a gross participation in each of the films, New Line has failed to pay the plaintiffs any portion of the gross profit participation at all."

Ο δικηγόρος του ιδρύματος, Steven Maier, της Manches LLP, δήλωσε :

"The Tolkien trustees do not file lawsuits lightly, and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their claims out of court. But in this case, New Line has left them no option at all. New Line has not paid the plaintiffs even one penny of its contractual share of gross receipts despite the billions of dollars of gross revenue generated by these wildly successful motion pictures. To make matters worse, to date New Line has even prevented the plaintiffs from auditing the last two films of the series. The trustees are very aggrieved by New Line's arrogance."

Ο Bonnie Eskenazi, μέλος του ιδρύματος, δήλωσε:

"New Line has brought new meaning to the phrase 'creative accounting.' I cannot imagine how on earth New Line will argue to a jury that these films could gross literally billions of dollars, and yet the creator's heirs, who are entitled to a share of gross receipts, don't get a penny."

Η συγκεκριμένη μήνυση θα αποτελέσει πρόβλημα στην παραγωγή των νέων ταινιών που θα βασιστούν στα έργα του J.R.R. Tolkien.