The management of exploitation rights for works derived from the works of JRR Tolkien is rather complex but of growing importance, in a landscape like that of entertainment that is more greedy than ever for attractive brands and strong enough to be able to invest in production from transpositions of every kind, from video games to feature films to TV series. Embracer Group, a Swedish company preparing to become a powerhouse in the audiovisual world, has announced that it has succeeded Middle-earth Enterprises (holder of the rights to Tolkien’s works, Under the spell of the Ring included) by The Saul Zaentz Company, who owned the rights and recently auctioned it.
The Scandinavian group has won a large and fierce competition and secured a top-level IP that allows it to create (internally or through licensing) all kinds of products inspired by Tolkien’s writings, both those already known (or better known) that others have not yet been published for the general public of non-fans. This includes the ability to exploit even individual characters or settings to create completely new spin-offs (as is, in a sense, The Rings of Power, developed by Amazon before the acquisition) in any form: comics, video games, TV series, feature films, theater productions.
It’s still early to understand how the editorial exploitation project will evolve, but it’s certainly a moment of great fame for the franchise, between the upcoming Gollum video game, the prequel TV series to The Rings of Power on Prime Video, and the project of the Warner Bros. animated film is still in progress. These are unrelated operations, but in the future Embracer could partner up for follow-up and further spin-offs.
Born in 2011 in the field of video games and Home Video, Embracer has successfully climbed the distribution and official licensing market in recent years, gradually acquiring very interesting pieces: for example, Asmodee, Dark Horse Comics and the former Koch Media (now Plaion), as well as individual IPs or packets thereof, such as those recently acquired by Square Enix, such as Tomb Raider. The goal is clearly to become a leading major not only in Europe by diversifying activities in different fields of entertainment.
We look forward to hearing how it will develop in the future in Tolkenian content production.
Source: Lega Nerd
