The document discusses the upcoming release of the film adaptation of The Hobbit. It notes that while The Hobbit predates The Lord of the Rings chronologically, it can also be considered a standalone novel. There is excitement around The Hobbit film as a potential blockbuster success like The Lord of Rings films. However, the producer who holds the rights to The Hobbit, Saul Zaentz, has been aggressively pursuing legal action, including threatening a British pub called The Hobbit. This sparked public backlash and two actors ultimately paid the licensing fee to allow the pub to continue operating without issues.

1. The Hobbit Is Coming, The Hobbit Is Coming!
March 22nd, 2012 · Robert Scott Lawrence
The long awaited prequel to The Lord
of the Rings is about to appear at a
luxury movie theater near you, where
you can lounge on heated leather
seats and eats tiny morsels of crab for
second breakfast as long as you are
careful not to spill any on your
complimentary chinchilla wrap. The Hobbit, of course, is only a prequel in
the loosest sense of the word, as it is really a stand-alone novel that Tolkien
wrote as a bedtime serial for his children. Although it pre-dates (in Middle
Earth time) LOTR by some eighty years and is essential reading if you want
a full understanding of what is happening in LOTR – and yes, you have to
read the books to understand the movies – the real prequel qua prequel
is The Silmarillion, which we must assume will be the next iconic work that
finds its way onto the silver screen.
This assumes, of course, that The Hobbit is going to be a blockbuster
success much like LOTR, which – although there is no such thing as a sure
thing – is as close to a sure thing as anything is likely to get. If I had my
druthers, I’d sell all my Apple stock and politely ask to help fund the
production costs of The Hobbit in exchange for the merest sliver of the
profits. Not the gross profits, of course, as I am intimately familiar with
Hollywood accounting (though not as familiar as Peter Jackson), but the
good old fashioned “net profits” that we common citizens of the free world
generally understand as “what’s left over after we pay all the costs.”
Among other indicia that Hollywood and all those associated with The
Hobbit think the film is going to be the next coming of the Titanic – only
more titanic – are the spate of lawsuits being brought by the hallowed-but-

2. more-recently-vilified producer Saul Zaentz (the brains behind One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, and The English Patient), who cannily
bought the rights to The Hobbit long ago and funded the memorable
animated version of LOTR by Ralph Bakshi back in the days of yore.
Recently, Zaentz and his team of lawyers have been firing off cease-and-desist
letters to virtually anyone who mentions the word “hobbit,” including
a sleepy British pub called – guess what? – The Hobbit, which has
peacefully coexisted with the intellectual property rights of Tolkien’s heirs
and assignees for over 20 years, and was founded in homage to the master’s
great work.
If you have the time and interest, a quick TESS search will reveal that
Zaentz’s lawyers have sought to trademark THE HOBBIT for virtually every
category of international goods, including everyone’s favorites –
international classes 32 and 33 for beer, spirits, and sundry alcoholic
beverages. Shutting down a long-standing UK pub called The Hobbit no
doubt seemed like a good idea to some pubescent trademark attorney
whose nose was put out of joint by a drink called The Gandalf (“How dare
they insult the canon like that?”), but the public backlash sparked by the
threatened lawsuit was a bit more than Zaentz had bargained for. A spate of
articles condemning the soulless practices of Zaentz went viral, petitions
went out asking for a green uprising by all those living under hill and dale
(i.e., hobbit lovers), and thousands of children of the ‘60s named Frodo
formed a last coalition of men and lawyers to prevent the forces of evil from
overwhelming the peaceful shire in which The Hobbit lay.
Ultimately, Zaentz relented and offered to allow the pub to exist if it paid a
de minimis licensing fee. In an act of spontaneous generosity, the actors
Stephen Fry and Ian McKellen today announced that they had paid the
licensing fee on behalf of the pub owners, so for now the brouhaha has
subsided, and the brews are on the house.