Middle-earth Enterprises, formerly known as Tolkien Enterprises, is a trading name for a division of the Saul Zaentz Company (SZC) based in Berkeley, California which 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.[1]
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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 ICE for role-playing games set in Middle-earth after ICE ceased developing new products for this line. This contributed to ICE's filing for bankruptcy in 2001. Tolkien Enterprises then made a new licensing agreement with Decipher Inc. for their Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.
Principal photography for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was conducted concurrently in New Zealand from October 11, 1999 through to December 22, 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, TE 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.
Video game rights to Tolkien's literary works were first licensed to Vivendi, which produced The Fellowship of the Ring in 2002 and The Hobbit in 2003. At around the same time licensing agreements for products relating to the films produced by Peter Jackson were obtained by Electronic Arts, leading to the release of a series of games, starting with The Two Towers in 2002. In 2005 EA acquired the rights to produce games based on the literary works as well,[2] producing further titles up to the release of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest in 2009, when the licensing agreement expired.[3] Video game rights then passed to Warner Brothers.[4]
In 2010 the name was changed to Middle-earth Enterprises.[1]
As of April 2009, the company's current licensees are as follows.[5]