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Swedish firm Embracer Group announced a number of new acquisitions this week, which included Limited Run Games, Singtrix, Tuxedo Labs, Tripwire Interactive, and Middle-earth Enterprises, grabbing the film and television rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in the process. The price for this latest round of acquisitions came to SEK8.2 billion, around $770 million, although Embracer Group didn’t mention how much of that cash was spent on the purchase of Middle-earth Enterprises.
The final price of that purchase is surprising, given the lucrative nature of the Middle-earth IP on its own. The IP rights cover movie projects and television series, and Embracer mentioned in a press release that this encompasses “key upcoming works” such as Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power and the Warner Bros. animated film The War of the Rohirrim.
For comparison, Amazon managed to buy the TV rights for almost $250 million in 2017 and the first season of Rings of Power is reported to have cost the company $465 million to finance, but former Amazon boss Sharon Tal Yguado declared that figure to be “fake” news. The Saul Zaentz Company, which held the rights to the IP through Middle-earth Enterprises since 1976, previously estimated that the LOTR IP rights were worth $2 billion.
Embracer Group has big plans for its Tolkien acquisition, which includes “exploring additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn,” and other characters from the literary works. The company has embarked on a transmedia acquisition as of late, adding comic book publisher Dark Horse and board games giant Asmodee to its portfolio.
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