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Peter Jackson has won the first stage in a legal battle against Hollywood studio New Line Cinema over profits from The Lord of the Rings.
A judge ordered the studio, which financially backed the trilogy, to pay US$125,000 ($168,500) to Jackson in legal costs and to hire an outside document retrieval service after it failed to produce potential evidence in the case, latimes.com reported.
Jackson is suing the studio, claiming it failed to account properly for profits from the first film in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring.
The lawsuit is believed to involve tens of millions of dollars.
