Friday Night Open Thread

You know the drill, the rules, and the consequences.

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“He would have finished Goddam off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. ‘It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets,’ he thought.” 

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Okay, maybe there is a LITTLE good news about Lord of the Rings.

As I indicated in my last post, there are legal disputes going on between SZC and Warner Brothers. Because Warner is the dumbest studio in Hollywood. Back in the 1970s Saul Zaentz bought up the rights to most of Tolkein’s IP apparently in perpetuity.

There were a few caveats in rights held by SZC, from what I can tell whoever is the head of the Tolkien Estate has the right of absolute veto over everything.  That meant something when Christopher Tolkien was the head.

Oh, and I was wrong about Bob Iger buying up the rights.  I don’t think he ever had the option. The Disney company appears to be specifically and hilariously prohibited from EVER doing anything with Middle Earth, in perpetuity. J.R.R. Tolkien hated Walt Disney and repeatedly told him to “get stuffed” whenever he came sniffing around after Tolkien’s IPs.

Getting back to the dumbest company in Hollywood.  SZC claims that most of the rights to the Lord of the Rings reverted back to them because WB hasn’t had a live action film in active development since 2013. That was dumb with a capital Warner Brothers.  

However, note my use of the words, ‘live action.’  There is an anime movie in being made:

Lord of the Rings – The war of the Rohirrim

“The untold story behind Helm’s Deep, hundreds of years before the fateful war, telling the life and bloodsoaked times of its founder, Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan.”

It’s being directed by Kenji Kamiyama, who cut his teeth on Akira and went on to helm projects like Eden of the East and The Napping Princess.  As an ethnic Japanese he is actually permitted to not revile and denigrate Western civlization in the name of Woke.  I’m sure he got notes from Warner Brothers but he can get away with pretending he can’t read them. 

I’m experiencing that rarest of sensations in 2022, I’m actually looking forward to something. 

 Black Pillers are invited to get the hell lost.  I need this.

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