Movie news: Tolkien heirs settle with New Line

hobbit-book-coverTolkien lawsuit settled. The trustees of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate have settled their lawsuit with New Line over the profits from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptations. Terms were not disclosed, but that’s certainly one less roadblock to The Hobbit adaption.

  • Industry. Warner Bros. is reorganizing DC Comics, relaunching it as DC Entertainment. Diane Nelson, who has overseen the Harry Potter movies, will run it.
  • Disney. There’s a new full-length trailer for The Princess and the Frog, awakening more than a bit of controversy. Meanwhile, the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty, about Disney’s last return to traditional animation, sounds very interesting.
  • More, uh, Disney. Pixar folks deny that the Marvel project they’re “excited about” is not, as Entertainment Weekly reported, Ant-Man. I say Pixar is the only studio who could make me consider seeing an Ant-Man movie, and that barely.
  • He-Man. At least one property of my childhood is safe (for now:) Warner Brothers is dropping their option on Masters of the Universe. My embarrassment squick thanks them.
  • The Road. This years’ Viggo Mortensen genre fix has been pushed back to Thanksgiving.

2 Replies to “Movie news: Tolkien heirs settle with New Line”

  1. A lot of times I think sensitive issues over political correctedness (specifically here with regards to the Princess & the Frog) are best served in academic circles.

    The movie is already coming out–getting upset over it won’t change anything because Disney isn’t making anymore animated films like this. Little girls will have to look elsewhere for multicultural role models.

    While the whole point of the story is for the princess to be a frog for the majority of the film, I think some people are nitpicking because it’s this film that Disney just happened to use a Black lead for.

    Which is silly, not because “at least Disney’s throwing a bone out to communities of color” but because the movie is being judged before it’s even been released.

    Okay, so Pocohantas glossed over what really happened and Jasmine is pointedly ignored as being the first real Disney princess of color, but that’s what Disney does! People need to stop looking at Disney for inspirational role models if they continually fail to please a large crowd of viewers/critics.

    I really doubt they’ll change.

    I don’t think that makes the movie bad or takes away from little kids enjoying the movies. They can grow up and analyze their psyches/interests/influences in grad school. Or, you know, their parents can use this opportunity to parent and bring in all sorts of other resources for kids to learn from…

    And I say this as a person of color who was raised on Disney and still turned out fabulous.

  2. It’s a freakin’ Disney movie.

    (Though one comment in a linked article made me go “huh?” “When I see as many minority faces as white ones…” MINORITY. Meaning “smaller precentage of the population of the country you are in.” I see fewer minority faces on the street than I see white faces because they’re in the minority.)

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