Zaentz countersues the Estate

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

What I'm saying is, it certainly seems that Zaentz Co did little that would have contributed to the "fame and goodwill" of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit "brand" prior to the Jackson films- yes, even as a purely commercial property.

This is my view as well. Surely the Bakshi cartoon and some licensed games did not account for the majority of "Tolkien awareness" during the period prior to the release of the New Line films. Indeed it would seem to me that beyond the existing enduring popularity of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings it would have been Christopher Tolkien's publication of material such as The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth series which would have contributed the most to continued awareness prior to the New Line films, which would put things more in the domain of the Estate over the majority of those "four decades".