Tolkien Enterprises

Middle-earth Enterprises, formerly known as Tolkien Enterprises, is a trading name for a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, located in Berkeley, California. The company owns the worldwide exclusive rights to certain elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's two most famous literary works: The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. These elements include the titles of the works, the names of characters contained within as well as the names of places, objects and events within them, and certain short phrases and sayings from the works.

J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sold the film, stage and merchandising rights of those works to United Artists in 1968, who in turn sold them to The Saul Zaentz Company in 1976 which licenses them through Tolkien Enterprises.

In 1978, Tolkien Enterprises and the distributor United Artists funded an animated version of The Lord of the Rings directed by Ralph Bakshi, which covered approximately the first half of the Lord of the Rings.

In 1999, the company severed their licensing agreement with Iron Crown Enterprises for role-playing games set in Middle-earth after ICE ceased developing new products for this line. This contributed to Iron Crown Enterprises filing for bankruptcy in 2001. Tolkien Enterprises then made a new licensing agreement with Decipher Inc. for their Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, which published content from 2002-2006.

Principal photography for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was conducted concurrently in New Zealand from 11 October 1999 through to 22 December 2000. Produced under license from Tolkien Enterprises and released by New Line Cinema between 2001 and 2003, the films met critical and commercial success. However, in August 2004, Tolkien Enterprises sued New Line for $20 million in unpaid royalties based on the difference between gross and net profits. An out-of-court settlement was reached in August 2005, though details were not released.

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