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Could PC Zone be more wrong? - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

October 23, 2000 at 13:47:50

TheOneRing.Net picked up a story from PC Zone in the UK which claims that Electronic Arts has secured the rights to publishing all games related to Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies. But there are some problems with the story.

For one thing, the company which is suing Tolkien Enterprises is Havas Interactive, not Hasbro Interactive. Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, but they don't own Havas. PC Zone is reporting that Hasbro "is currently in a legal battle to try and secure rights to publish a Lord of the Rings game which would be totally un-connected to the films in any shape or form."

PC Zone also says Peter Jackson is an Australian director. Most anyone knows by now that Jackson is a Kiwi (New Zealand) director.

So, given these major gaffes, how likely is it that the main point of the story -- that Electronic Arts has secured the movie-related gaming license -- is correct? Electronic Arts has been mentioned as a contender in several industry articles since June. Recent rumors have suggested they were in negotiation with New Line Cinema for the contract. But oddly none of the major news sources (or anyone, for that matter, beyond a few fannish Web sites) are reporting that the contract has been secured.

When we checked Electronic Arts' Web site for a press release or something we found the server was down.

At the very least, rumors about the EA deal's being finalized still seem to be rather premature.