Precious Lord of the Rings license goes from EA to WB
by Alexander Sliwinski 
on Mar 12th 2009 12:43PM
The Lord of the Rings license has journeyed to EA and back again to Warner Bros.
The Cut Scene reports that the licensing deal for EA to create titles based on the
Lord of the Rings films quietly expired at the end of last year. At that time, the rights reverted back to New Line, which is part of Warner Bros. When EA received the
Ring license back in 2001, Warner wasn't fully committed to the game business ...
that's certainly changed this decade. Warner has also
heavily invested in Turbine, developer of
Lord of the Rings Online. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment apparently declined to comment on the story.
The movie industry is certainly attempting with
increasing regularity to enter the game space, hiring executives that may
get the job done.
Paramount is ready to publish (the rumored)
Star Trek DAC in a couple months, while
Disney has become far less reliant on licensing its properties to THQ over the years. In time, it appears we'll see more in-house development of games that we currently see "licensed" out, which will
hopefully mean better products.
