Jackson sues over LOTR profits

Peter Jackson, visionary director of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, is suing New Line Cinema for a greater share of the licensing profits from the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, in a suit which cites a failure to pay for script and song lyric use in a licensed EA videogame amongst 19 financial quibbles.

The suit doesn't specify which game is the problem. EA has produced several, including games directly based on The Two Towers and Return of the King as well as spin-off RPG The Third Age; however only Vivendi's Fellowship of the Ring title, based on the books rather than the film, dealt with the first story.

It's a problem for Jackson though, who, along with his partner Fran Walsh and their company Wingnut Films, listed the gaming grievance prominently amongst the various allegations. New Line has declined to discuss them, but Wingnut lawyer Peter Nelson said the company had "attempted to resolve our differences... through the normal auditing process. That has proven unsatisfactory so far."

You can find a more detailed overview of Jackson's action here. We'd also like to link this account for summing the case up thusly: "Lord of the Rings mastermind Peter Jackson is looking for the return of the bling."

Jackson is currently working on a remake of King Kong, which Ubisoft has signed on to turn into a videogame.