Beyond the Tolkien Estate

[Mister Underhill]

In regards to who's getting, or has gotten, what money -- the sale of movie rights typically involves the author getting a percentage of profits realized from an adaptation. I'd be surprised if the Estate isn't owed some slice of the movie profits. Balanced against this, of course, is Hollywood's infamously creative accounting, which can show that movies even as insanely profitable as the LotR cycle has been are still in the red...