PJ wins Round 1

[Sauron the White]

hot off the presses....

Kiwi director Peter Jackson has won the first round in his fight with Hollywood studio New Line Cinema over profits from The Lord of the Rings.


A judge has fined New Line, the film trilogy's financial backer, $US125,000 ($NZ169,000) for failing to turn over court-ordered documents in the case.

The Hollywood Reporter said Jackson's lawyers might also be allowed to inspect New Line's files if the studio did not produce several audits within 21 days.

New Line must also hire an outsider to collect electronic documents, including e-mails, it said.

Jackson sued New Line two years ago over money made, including DVD payments, from the first The Lord of the Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring.

When Jackson's suit was filed it did not specify the amount of damages sought, but his lawyers later told The New York Times they believed Jackson was underpaid by as much as $US100 million for all three films, which had made more than $US4 billion.

[Knight of Gondor]

I wish they'd hurry up and get the fight over with so they can kiss, make up, and make The Hobbit.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Knight of Gondor

I wish they'd hurry up and get the fight over with so they can kiss, make up, and make The Hobbit.

Well, if that's the likely outcome I'm going to try & start the whole row up again.....

[Mister Underhill]

There's already been some public thawing of the frosty relations this past August on the part of Shaye, head honcho at New Line: Return of The Hobbit Helmer.

[Sauron the White]

Here is much more detail from the LA TImes. It looks like New Line is engaged in some sort of conspiracy to both cover-up and destroy evidence they were ordered to produce by the court!!!!

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New Line fined in 'Lord of the Rings' court battle

A judge orders the studio to pay $125,000 and hire an outside document retrieval service after evidence in director Peter Jackson's accounting lawsuit isn't produced.
By John Horn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 21, 2007
Peter Jackson has scored a legal victory in his battle with New Line Cinema over the accounting of the "Lord of the Rings," with a federal magistrate hitting the studio with $125,000 in sanctions for failing to produce potential evidence.

Jackson is suing New Line, contending that he had not received a fair and proper accounting of the first "Lord of the Rings" film's income, including DVD sales and foreign receipts. All told, the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy sold about $3 billion of movie tickets worldwide.

The lawsuit does not specify monetary damages, but is believed potentially to include tens of millions of dollars for Jackson. The lawsuit has driven a wedge between Jackson and New Line, and delayed development of a contemplated New Line-MGM movie based on "The Hobbit," a related novel written by "Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien.

Lawyers for Jackson and New Line did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In an often angry ruling dated Sept. 18, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen J. Hillman found that New Line may have destroyed (or failed to prevent the destruction of) documents and failed to search diligently for documents and e-mails it was required by the court to produce. Hillman recounts any number of examples where the studio's searches were not meaningful or "haphazard." He was particularly critical of how New Line treated e-mails related to the film and its accounting.

"No witness can say with any degree of certainty what individuals searched their own e-mail files or how any of those searches were conducted," the magistrate wrote. Furthermore, he wrote, "New Line did not suspend the automatic deletion of e-mails and other electronic documents as part of a litigation hold; instead, to this day, e-mails continue to be purged from every employee's in-box every thirty days."

Convinced New Line has not and will not scour its electronic records appropriately, Hillman instructed the studio to retain and pay for an outside document retrieval vendor within three weeks. He also said some New Line witnesses may face further depositions to discuss new documents that should have been produced earlier but weren't.

The $125,000 in sanctions is intended to reimburse Jackson's attorneys some of their costs in pursuing the documents. In July 2006, Hillman ordered New Line to produce sales and licensing documents the studio had argued were confidential and proprietary.

john.horn@latimes.com