Is The Hobbit Dead In The Water Already?

Apparently, not everyone is looking forward to seeing the new adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Well, for starters, there is a deformed bloke in a village in Peru who keeps getting rocks thrown at him and being called ‘Gollum’ who wishes they would forget the whole idea. Saying that, he still has the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy on DVD – gold edition, too.

Then there’s our housemate Steve, who is just odd. And then there is Tolkien’s 83-year-old son Christopher, who just doesn’t like people enjoying themselves.

You know the kind of old man we are talking about. He’s the neighbour who used to look forward to your ball going over the fence, just so he could drive a pitch fork through it while laughing maniacally.

In fact, according to Film School Rejects, even his his own relatives call him ‘cantankerous’ and doubt if he’s ever even seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy in his life.

So what’s his problem? Well, again, according to Film School Rejects, he wants to shut down filming of the fantasy classic on the grounds New Line Cinema owe him bundles of cash (cue more maniacal laughter).

In fact, he is going to court in California on June 6 to ask that the rights to The Hobbit – which will be split into two films and will now star Ron Perlman - are terminated.

He says the only reason his father sold the rights in the first place was to pay for a tax bill. And now he wants them back.

Now, we at hecklerspray are no legal eagles, but we still don’t see how he has a furry, big foot to stand on.

If you sold something to pay for something else, however annoying, you no longer own it, right?

If not, well, just think of what we could claim back.

Anyway, he is still owed £80m under an agreement which gave the family a 7.5 per cent share of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And judging by the lengths Peter Jackson had to go to just to get paid by New Line, it’s not surprising he is pretty angry with them.

He also has an ace up his sleeve.

He owns the rights to Tolkien’s novel and LOTR companian The Silmarillion, which director and Hobbit look-a-like Guillermo Del Toro and producer Peter Jackson hope to use while making the second film.

So we are sure something will be sorted out in time for the project to go ahead. At least we know who the REAL Lord of the Rings is.

Original here