boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian) (05/22/84)
> As best I know, here is what happened with _The Lord of The Rings_ > > First of all, there is a matter of film rights. Ralph Bakshi was > given the rights to _The Fellowship of the Ring_ and _The Two Towers_, > whereas Rankin/Bass got the rights to _The Hobbit_ and _The Return of > the King_. Bakshi had planned to get the rights to RotK, but failed. > -- > -The Parker Hobbit > a.k.a. Thomas R. Pellitieri No, I'm afraid that that isn't the case. Bakshi *did* have rights to the entire LOTR, though you're right that he did not have rights to THE HOBBIT. The reason Rankin/Bass were able to do THE RETURN OF THE KING was the same reason that Ace Books was able to publish an edition of the 3 books of LOTR in the middle 60's (ever wonder why the Ballantine editions say "Authorized Edition"?). It seems that the first edition of LOTR, published in the 1950's did not have a proper copyright (rather than Houghton-Mifflin printing their own edition, they import- ed copies of the Unwin edition from England and bound them here). At the time, this did not qualify the book for an American copyright, so that edition fell into public domain. It is from *that* edition that Rankin/Bass did their version of RETURN OF THE KING (and Ace Books did their unauthorized paperbacks). --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA
urban@trwspp.UUCP (05/23/84)
Even more emphatically, Ian Ballantine (who should know!) once mentioned that ANYONE can produce a film version of Lord of the Rings as long as it is based on "the original edition" which is unprotected in the USA. The reason that major studios DON'T do this is that they wouldn't be able to release the film in any foreign markets. Also, (and I'm less confident on this one) Bakshi doesn't hold the movie rights for LotR; United Artists (now UA/MGM) does, and sort of contracted out to Bakshi to produce the film. Presumably, MGM could do it over again, properly, if they wanted to. Mike