Swedish entertainment company buys rights to ‘Lord of the Rings’ films and other Tolkien intellectual property

The deal gives Embracer the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” film trilogies and any Tolkien-related movies, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions.

Article doesn’t make it clear how this interacts with Amazon’s billion-dollar forthcoming fan-film series. It *seems* like they’ve got the rights to the same thing Amazon has the rights to, so when Amazon’s little project turns out to be terrible, in theory this new company could come along and make a series set in exactly the same time frame and region, but do it properly and completely erase “Rings of Power.” Not that they necessarily will, mind you… but if “Rings of Power” turns into a complete disaster (as all evidence to date suggests rather strongly), that’ll be incentive to not screw with the lore and insult the fanbase. Being a Swedish company, one cautiously wonders if any future enterprise might cast Scandinavians as elves, as would seem utterly appropriate.