Box-office magic … Ian McKellen as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films, which earned upwards of $6bn in theatrical and DVD sales
Guillermo del Toro's film version of The Hobbit could be killed off in a pending battle between a Hollywood giant and the family of the book's author, JRR Tolkien. The heirs to the Tolkien estate are suing New Line Cinema, the studio behind the Lord of the Rings adaptations, claiming $220m (£133m) in compensation for undistributed profits from the films. For good measure, they are also demanding the option to terminate further film rights to Tolkien's work, citing breach of contract.
"Should the case go all the way to trial, we are confident that New Line will lose its rights to The Hobbit," said Bonnie Eskenazi, the lawyer working for the author's son, Christopher, and the family's charity, the Tolkien Trust. The case – officially billed as Christopher Reuel Tolkien v New Line Cinema Corp – is due to be heard at Los Angeles superior court in October.
JRR Tolkien sold the film rights to the trilogy in 1969 for an upfront fee of £250,000 and a reported 7.5% of future profits. Released between 2001 and 2003, the Lord of the Rings trilogy went on to earn upwards of $6bn in theatrical and DVD sales. However, the Tolkien estate claims it has yet to receive any payment from New Line or its parent company, Time Warner. For their part, lawyers acting for New Line argue that terms of the original contract are "ambiguous".
The studio has grown accustomed to fighting legal battles in the wake of The Lord of the Rings' success. In 2005 director Peter Jackson sued New Line for a share of the profits, eventually settling for an undisclosed sum in 2007. The film-maker Saul Zaentz, previous owner of the rights to Tolkien's work, settled for a reported $168m in 2005.
The Hobbit is currently in pre-production in New Zealand, with a release date set for 2011. Tolkien's tale of an intrepid hobbit who sets off in search of dragon treasure will be divided into two pictures, directed by Del Toro and executive produced by Jackson.The witching hour belonged to the wizards, at least so far as the US box office was concerned. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened in American cinemas at the ungodly time of 12.01am Wednesday morning. By sunrise it had earned an unprecedented $22.2m (£13.5m) from 3,033 screenings. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Release: 2009 Country: Rest of the world Cert (UK): 12A muntime: 153 mins
Directors: David Yates Cast: Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton More on this film
The figure breaks the previous $18m record for midnight screenings, set last year by The Dark Knight. It also eclipses the $12m midnight-run haul for the previous Potter outing, 2007's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Variety claims that the bumper takings may be largely thanks to an older teenaged audience. The children who grew up on the JK Rowling source novels, it suggests, are now old enough to attend late-night film screenings.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince follows the adventures of our trio of adolescent wizards as their lengthy battle with the Dark Lord Voldemort enters the final straight. The last Rowling novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be broken into two films which will be released separately in 2010 and 2011.
Emboldened by those midnight figures, industry experts now predict the latest instalment could earn as much as $150m during its five-day opening weekend in the US. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix took $139.7 during the same period and went on to gross $938.2m at the global box office.With his bright eyes, excitable demeanour and enormous appetite for sexual conquests, it looks like the perfect role: Russell Brand, court jester of British comedy and Hollywood ingenue, has been cast as the Easter Bunny.
Brand will provide the voice of the chocolate egg-bearing rabbit in a new family comedy based on a mix of live-action and CGI, titled I Hop. The story centres on a jobless slacker who runs over the Easter Bunny while driving home late, Variety reports. With the creature unable to fulfil his usual duties due to a broken leg, the man is forced into action to help save Easter. As they get to know each other while going about their work, it turns out the new comrades are both running from adulthood.
Tim Hill, who shot similar fare with last year's hugely successful Alvin and the Chipmunks, will direct for Universal and Illumination Entertainment.
Producer Chris Meledandri said: "Russell showed me that he's got a wonderful ability not only to be funny in his own body, but he can create humour vocally, which is the distinction we need for these movies," Meledandri said. "This gives us an opportunity to re-mythologise the holiday around an Easter Bunny character that is as dynamic and irreverent as Russell is."
The script is by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, who worked on another Illumination project, Despicable Me, which is in cinemas on 9 July in the US. Brand is part of a voice cast which includes Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig and Julie Andrews.
The former TV presenter is currently lining up a number of Hollywood projects, including Judd Apatow's Get Him to the Greek, in which he reprises his role as British rocker Aldous Snow from last year's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and remakes of Drop Dead Fred, and Oscar-winning comedy Arthur.She's still vacillating between Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver, but now she's replaced calorie-counting with a new obsession: having a baby before it's too late. Yes, Bridget Jones is returning to the multiplexes in a new film from Working Title, with Renee Zellweger set to reprise her role as the chardonnay-quaffing, big-underpants-wearing British singleton.
Variety reports the new movie – the third in the series following 2001's Bridget Jones and 2004 sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – will be based on writer Helen Fielding's series of columns in the Independent in 2005. The storyline sees Bridget trying to have a baby in her 40s, despite still not being able to decide between handsome but untrustworthy publisher Cleaver, played by Hugh Grant in the films, and steady but boring Darcy, played by Colin Firth.
The film version, which is unlikely to go into production before the end of the year, comes at a troubled time for Working Title, which has just axed six of its 45 staff members due to the economic downturn.
The company's most recent film, Richard Curtis's pirate-radio tale The Boat That Rocked, was a box-office flop, taking just $9.1m (£5.5m) in the UK despite a budget of $50m. It is currently being recut for the US market, where its release date has been pushed back from August to November.
Variety reports that the staff cuts will not affect its core production, development, finance and legal departments, and the company will still make its average of four features a year. Its inhouse development fund, backed by Universal Pictures and said to be the largest in the UK film industry, remains intact.
Meanwhile, after early speculation, Cate Blanchett is now confirmed to play Lady Edwina Mountbatten in a separate Working Title venture, the period tale Indian Summer. Based on the book of the same name by guardian.co.uk columnist Alex von Tunzelmann, the film chronicles the handover of power in the last days of British colonial rule in India in 1947. Printable versionSend to a friend Share Clip contact us larger smaller mailClose Recipient's email address Your first name Your surname Add a note (optional) Your IP address will be logged ShareClose Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Twitterdel.icio.uStumbleUponNewsvinelivejourna Facebook Mixx it!
Guillermo del Toro's film version of The Hobbit could be killed off in a pending battle between a Hollywood giant and the family of the book's author, JRR Tolkien. The heirs to the Tolkien estate are suing New Line Cinema, the studio behind the Lord of the Rings adaptations, claiming $220m (£133m) in compensation for undistributed profits from the films. For good measure, they are also demanding the option to terminate further film rights to Tolkien's work, citing breach of contract.
"Should the case go all the way to trial, we are confident that New Line will lose its rights to The Hobbit," said Bonnie Eskenazi, the lawyer working for the author's son, Christopher, and the family's charity, the Tolkien Trust. The case – officially billed as Christopher Reuel Tolkien v New Line Cinema Corp – is due to be heard at Los Angeles superior court in October.
JRR Tolkien sold the film rights to the trilogy in 1969 for an upfront fee of £250,000 and a reported 7.5% of future profits. Released between 2001 and 2003, the Lord of the Rings trilogy went on to earn upwards of $6bn in theatrical and DVD sales. However, the Tolkien estate claims it has yet to receive any payment from New Line or its parent company, Time Warner. For their part, lawyers acting for New Line argue that terms of the original contract are "ambiguous".
The studio has grown accustomed to fighting legal battles in the wake of The Lord of the Rings' success. In 2005 director Peter Jackson sued New Line for a share of the profits, eventually settling for an undisclosed sum in 2007. The film-maker Saul Zaentz, previous owner of the rights to Tolkien's work, settled for a reported $168m in 2005.
The Hobbit is currently in pre-production in New Zealand, with a release date set for 2011. Tolkien's tale of an intrepid hobbit who sets off in search of dragon treasure will be divided into two pictures, directed by Del Toro and executive produced by Jackson.The witching hour belonged to the wizards, at least so far as the US box office was concerned. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened in American cinemas at the ungodly time of 12.01am Wednesday morning. By sunrise it had earned an unprecedented $22.2m (£13.5m) from 3,033 screenings. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Release: 2009 Country: Rest of the world Cert (UK): 12A muntime: 153 mins
Directors: David Yates Cast: Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton More on this film
The figure breaks the previous $18m record for midnight screenings, set last year by The Dark Knight. It also eclipses the $12m midnight-run haul for the previous Potter outing, 2007's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Variety claims that the bumper takings may be largely thanks to an older teenaged audience. The children who grew up on the JK Rowling source novels, it suggests, are now old enough to attend late-night film screenings.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince follows the adventures of our trio of adolescent wizards as their lengthy battle with the Dark Lord Voldemort enters the final straight. The last Rowling novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be broken into two films which will be released separately in 2010 and 2011.
Emboldened by those midnight figures, industry experts now predict the latest instalment could earn as much as $150m during its five-day opening weekend in the US. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix took $139.7 during the same period and went on to gross $938.2m at the global box office.With his bright eyes, excitable demeanour and enormous appetite for sexual conquests, it looks like the perfect role: Russell Brand, court jester of British comedy and Hollywood ingenue, has been cast as the Easter Bunny.
Brand will provide the voice of the chocolate egg-bearing rabbit in a new family comedy based on a mix of live-action and CGI, titled I Hop. The story centres on a jobless slacker who runs over the Easter Bunny while driving home late, Variety reports. With the creature unable to fulfil his usual duties due to a broken leg, the man is forced into action to help save Easter. As they get to know each other while going about their work, it turns out the new comrades are both running from adulthood.
Tim Hill, who shot similar fare with last year's hugely successful Alvin and the Chipmunks, will direct for Universal and Illumination Entertainment.
Producer Chris Meledandri said: "Russell showed me that he's got a wonderful ability not only to be funny in his own body, but he can create humour vocally, which is the distinction we need for these movies," Meledandri said. "This gives us an opportunity to re-mythologise the holiday around an Easter Bunny character that is as dynamic and irreverent as Russell is."
The script is by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, who worked on another Illumination project, Despicable Me, which is in cinemas on 9 July in the US. Brand is part of a voice cast which includes Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig and Julie Andrews.
The former TV presenter is currently lining up a number of Hollywood projects, including Judd Apatow's Get Him to the Greek, in which he reprises his role as British rocker Aldous Snow from last year's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and remakes of Drop Dead Fred, and Oscar-winning comedy Arthur.She's still vacillating between Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver, but now she's replaced calorie-counting with a new obsession: having a baby before it's too late. Yes, Bridget Jones is returning to the multiplexes in a new film from Working Title, with Renee Zellweger set to reprise her role as the chardonnay-quaffing, big-underpants-wearing British singleton.
Variety reports the new movie – the third in the series following 2001's Bridget Jones and 2004 sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – will be based on writer Helen Fielding's series of columns in the Independent in 2005. The storyline sees Bridget trying to have a baby in her 40s, despite still not being able to decide between handsome but untrustworthy publisher Cleaver, played by Hugh Grant in the films, and steady but boring Darcy, played by Colin Firth.
The film version, which is unlikely to go into production before the end of the year, comes at a troubled time for Working Title, which has just axed six of its 45 staff members due to the economic downturn.
The company's most recent film, Richard Curtis's pirate-radio tale The Boat That Rocked, was a box-office flop, taking just $9.1m (£5.5m) in the UK despite a budget of $50m. It is currently being recut for the US market, where its release date has been pushed back from August to November.
Variety reports that the staff cuts will not affect its core production, development, finance and legal departments, and the company will still make its average of four features a year. Its inhouse development fund, backed by Universal Pictures and said to be the largest in the UK film industry, remains intact.
Meanwhile, after early speculation, Cate Blanchett is now confirmed to play Lady Edwina Mountbatten in a separate Working Title venture, the period tale Indian Summer. Based on the book of the same name by guardian.co.uk columnist Alex von Tunzelmann, the film chronicles the handover of power in the last days of British colonial rule in India in 1947. Printable versionSend to a friend Share Clip contact us larger smaller mailClose Recipient's email address Your first name Your surname Add a note (optional) Your IP address will be logged ShareClose Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Twitterdel.icio.uStumbleUponNewsvinelivejourna Facebook Mixx it!
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Contact the Film editorfilm.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
Report errors or inaccuracies: userhelp@guardian.co.uk
Letters for publication should be sent to: letters@guardian.co.uk
If you need help using the site: userhelp@guardian.co.uk
Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 3353 2000
Advertising guide
License/buy our content
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