Jan 12 2002
Movies & money
According to the XLibris newsletter this week, the authors of the two biggest movies now in theaters were breathtakingly ripped off. JRR Tolkien sold the movie rights for “Lord of the Rings” for a paltry $14,500 in 1968 in order to pay his taxes. While I can sympathize with his motives, I suspect that even way back in 1968, that wasn’t very much money. In the short time the movie has been in theaters, it has made more than $205.5 MILLION.
It really surprised me to learn in the same edition of the newsletter that JK Rowling, the author of the phenomenally successful Harry Potter books, sold the movie rights for a still-paltry $1.4 million, compared to the film’s record-breaking to-date take of $300.4 million. I can believe that Tolkien was na?ve, and movies in those days weren’t the huge money makers they are now, nor did they cost anywhere near as much (although 1963’s scandalous “Cleopatra”, made in 1963, went way over budget at $44 million and nearly bankrupted the studio), but Rowling’s books were and are some of the biggest best sellers ever, all over the world. I would have thought she would have asked for a percentage of the box office as well as the original fee. Hopefuly she’ll get a better deal on the next movie in the series.
I’m not a big Tolkien fan — I find it somewhat disturbing when adults create microscopically detailed fantasy worlds, with maps and languages and mythology — and I have no interest in seeing the movie, but I do think that the producers of the film should offer a little extra money to Tolkien’s family. After all, if it weren’t for his books, there would be no movie. And it really isn’t fair that they should make multi-millions, essentially from the author’s ideas, when the author himself could barely pay his taxes.