Pj To Produce The Hobbit!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Sorry, folks, there's not going to be any Silmarillion material.

[Sauron the White]

See, there you go. Making authoritave statements when there clearly is a difference of opinion about what even constitutes "SIlmarillion material". I would remind you that the word Silmarallion was used by JRRT in the Appendicies to LOTR where he described many events of the First and Second Ages. That material from LOTR is owned as film rights by Saul Zaentz and New Line Cinema.

And yet some people think there is nothing to work out? Please.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Nope, there's nothing to work out. If Zaentz/New Line use Tolkien material not included in the LR, then the lawyers will descend. Period. Why should the Estate 'compromise' when the other side has a null claim?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I would remind you that the word Silmarallion was used by JRRT in the Appendicies to LOTR where he described many events of the First and Second Ages.

He also used the word 'the' in LotR, & having spent most of last night checking I find he used it in all his other fiction - I think this is proof positive that when Tolkien sold the film rights to LotR & TH that actually included everything he wrote that includes the word 'the'.

To strengthen the case - he also made use of commas in all his writings.....

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

See, there you go. Making authoritave statements when there clearly is a difference of opinion about what even constitutes "SIlmarillion material". I would remind you that the word Silmarallion was used by JRRT in the Appendicies to LOTR where he described many events of the First and Second Ages. That material from LOTR is owned as film rights by Saul Zaentz and New Line Cinema.

And yet some people think there is nothing to work out? Please.

The rights to The Lord of the Rings (including the appendices) and The Hobbit are separate from the rights to The Silmarillion. [By which I mean the book published under that title in 1977, okay?]

That doesn't mean that New Line won't try and get permission to use material from The Silmarillion in their upcoming movies– but that has nothing to do with the use of the word "Silmarillion" in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings.

When people talk about The Silmarillion, they are, by default, talking about the published book, not the synopses of some of the events included in Appendix A. (Anyway, Tolkien didn't call Appendix A The Silmarillion, either.)

Surely you understand the difference?

[Sauron the White]

Nerwen ... yes, I do understand the difference. Yes, I do understand what constitutes the book length SILMARALLION. Yes, I do understand the material found in the Appendicies in which Tolkien uses the term Silmarallion. And yes, I do understand that there is a good deal of overlap between the two. And there is the rub.

[Nerwen]

To quote myself (in the First and Second Age Film Rights thread)

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Are you suggesting that lawyers for Tolkien Estate might claim anything which is treated in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion violates the copyright on the latter? I don't think they'd get very far.

[Thenamir]

My vote for the voice of Smaug: Michael Dorn -- give him a proper British accent and rough up the edges of that voice (Lt. Worf on Star Trek, for those not in-the-know), and it could be smooth and mysterious riddling with Bilbo, and wild and dangerous attacking Lake-Town. James Earl Jones is already too many great voices, Sean Connery has already voiced a dragon (Dragonheart), John Rhys-Davies is both Gimli and Treebeard, and Christopher Lee has already been marked in my mind as Saruman.

But please, please, don't get someone like the voice artist, whoever he was, who did Smaug in the Rankin-Bass version. (Aptly named -- "rank" means stinking, and "bass" is a fish.) That was simply dreadful.