What Can Embracer Group Do With Lord of the Rings?

Last last year, climaxing a spate of company acquisitions across comics, games, and more, the Embracer Group—a Swedish-based conglomerate born from the ashes of Nordic Games—announced that it had acquired Middle-earth Enterprises, a subdivision of the Saul Zaentz Company that has owned myriad worldwide adaptive rights to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit since the mid-1970s. This includes specific character and location names, objects, certain events from the story, and particular phrases and quotes from both books.

Embracer, through Middle-earth Enterprises, can license these rights out across film, certain TV productions—as we’ll see with Amazon soon—games, and other media, and currently do so through a series of licenses that were arranged during the Saul Zaentz Company’s ownership of the subdivision. These deals include:

Warner Bros., for film rights (more on that soon)

Games Workshop, the British-based Warhammer miniatures developer which also releases the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game wargame series, covering both the books and the Warner Bros. movies

Free League Publishing, for tabletop RPGs like The One Ring RPG, as well as other card and board games

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, for video games pertaining to both the books and Peter Jackson’s movies

Merchandise companies such as Royal Selangor, Danbury Mint, and Lladró Comercial, for products based on the books and movie trilogies