Tolkien Estate

[6] In February 2008, the Tolkien Trust sued New Line Cinema, the studio behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for £75 million claiming they had not received "even one penny" from the films.

[9][10] In November 2012 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Fourth Age Limited (later Tolkien Estate, Ltd)[11] and other plaintiffs sued several Warner Bros. affiliates alleging copyright infringement, breach of contract, and seeking declaratory relief, arguing that the defendants exceeded the scope of their rights.

In March 2013, the Saul Zaentz Co. (doing business as Middle-earth Enterprises), the rightsholder for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit properties, filed an amended counterclaim against Fourth Age for declaratory relief, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and quantum meruit.

[12][14] The Tolkien Estate et al. attempted to block these countersuits under California's anti-SLAPP statute, claiming that Warner Brothers was interfering with their right to petition under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

On 11 July 2013, US District Judge Audrey Collins denied a motion to dismiss, disagreeing that what Warner Brothers was doing was making "disguised claims for malicious prosecution" and wrote "these claims arise out of the parties' divergent understanding of the Warner Parties' and Zaentz's rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

[16] In November 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings appendices found at the end of The Return of the King.