X

'Lord of the Rings' Acquired by Gaming Giant Embracer Group

The deal includes Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions.

Sean Keane Former Senior Writer
Sean knows far too much about Marvel, DC and Star Wars, and poured this knowledge into recaps and explainers on CNET. He also worked on breaking news, with a passion for tech, video game and culture.
Expertise Culture, Video Games, Breaking News
Sean Keane
The One Ring falls onto Frodo Baggins' outstretched finger in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

We might see more Lord of the Rings movies in the wake of the Embracer Group's acquisition.

New Line Cinema

The Embracer Group is buying Middle-earth Enterprises, giving it the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the video game giant said in a release Thursday. The deal includes movies, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novels.

The Swedish publisher struck a deal with the Saul Zaentz Company, which acquired the Lord of the Rings rights in 1976, but they didn't say how much money changed hands "due to commercial reasons."

It plans to explore "additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from the literary works of JRR Tolkien, and continue to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictive world through merchandising and other experiences."

For now, the deal gives Embracer a financial interest in the many upcoming Middle-earth works, including Amazon's Rings of Power show (which kicks off Sept. 2 on Amazon Prime Video, and includes Galadriel) and animated prequel movie War of the Rohirrim (which features Eowyn).

On the gaming front, there's a sneaky Gollum action-adventure, the survival-focused Return to Moria, Weta's mysterious project, EA's mobile offering Heroes of Middle-earth and the long-running MMO The Lord Of The Rings Online.

Lord of the Rings isn't the only iconic franchise Embracer acquired this year. In May, it struck a deal with Japanese publisher Square Enix that gave it the rights to the Tomb Raider franchise