Hollywood producer finally hits paydirt over Lord of the Rings

The veteran Hollywood producer Saul Zaentz has proved the old adage that good things come to those who wait, finally hitting paydirt almost 30 years after first acquiring the film rights to a certain cult fantasy novel called The Lord of the Rings.

The magazine Variety reported yesterday that Mr Zaentz, who had nothing ultimately to do with Peter Jackson's wildly successful movie trilogy, had been paid a thumping US$168 million by New Line Cinema as part of a settlement designed to ward off a full-blown jury trial, which would otherwise have started last month.

It was, the entertainment newspaper said, the biggest payday ever earned by a producer for a film or series of films he didn't even produce.

The settlement - which may ultimately involve further compensation for Mr Zaentz because of a secondary dispute over royalty payment calculations - was the latest twist in an increasingly ugly battle over the spoils from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which ended up taking almost US$3 billion in worldwide box-office receipts and is still raking in profits thanks to DVD sales and other secondary marketing opportunities.

New Line Cinema understandably feels that it is entitled to the lion's share of the profits because it took the biggest risk - committing to all three films ahead of time and putting US$180 million up front at a time when fantasy was as unfashionable a genre as light opera.

That stance has, however, aggrieved a number of other parties, including Peter Jackson, the director, and his producer-wife Fran Walsh, who have sued New Line alleging that they have been short-changed on their share of revenue from home video, merchandising and video games related to the film.

Mr Zaentz is a revered figure in Hollywood, responsible for relatively few films over the years even though almost every one has been wildly successful - everything from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1976, to Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1995).

His acquisition of JRR Tolkein's trilogy led to an unsuccessful cartoon version of the first of the three books in 1978, after which it became received wisdom in the film industry that the Rings cycle was well-nigh unfilmable.

The idea was revived in the mid-1990s, when Mr Jackson approached Miramax films for seed funds. Since Miramax had distributed The English Patient, there was a ready-made relationship with Mr Zaenz.

Miramax, however, was forced to let go of the project after Disney, its parent company, said no to the anticipated high cost of Mr Jackson's project. Miramax was reluctant to see the venture go, and only allowed it to be shopped around other studios after lumbering it with several unattractive legal stipulations.

It is those stipulations that have become the stuff of many of the lawsuits, including Mr Zaentz's. New Line picked up the property undaunted by the obstacles. The names of Mr Zaentz and Miramax appeared on the credits (and in the Oscar nominations) but they were not involved in the production in any way.

Mr Zaentz's suit originally claimed that his royalties were being wrongly calculated on the basis of net receipts rather than gross receipts - the oldest bone of contention in the Hollywood playbook. His lawyers originally saw the discrepancy as amounting to about US$20 million.

Quite how the US$168 million figure - almost enough to make the trilogy all over again - was reached remains unknown.

- INDEPENDENT