When it rains…it seems the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien is upset over an online slot machine game using the Lord Of The Rings property – so much so that they’ve sued Warner Bros, New Line, and Saul Zentz Co. (the long-time movie rights holder Lord Of The Rings) for $80 million.

Apparently the estate’s lawyers received a spam email about the game, and looked into the rights. In the lawsuit they claim, “The original contracting parties thus contemplated a limited grant of the right to sell consumer products of the type regularly merchandised at the time such as figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing and the like. They did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services.” The estate also learned that a physical slot machine game was also planned.

There are video games, etc. based on the movies, so it seems odd that this particular claim is made, as it seems to imply that those rights were not granted to the defendants.

For those of you who have been waiting for the Extended Editions of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy to be released individually on Blu-ray, your wait is over this Tuesday, August 28th. Now you can get The Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers and The Return of the King each individually.

Each movie comes with 5 discs – 2 Blu-ray discs for the movie and related special features like audio commentaries, etc. and 3 DVDs full of all the extra content.

Pre-order now (or purchase later) via the links above and help us out!

Syfy has just announced that it will air the mini-series Treasure Island, which aired in the UK earlier this year, as a one-night-only special event.

Presenting a fresh, new spin on the classic tale, Treasure Island, featuring an all-star cast led by Eddie Izzard (Oceans 12, and just yesterday announced to star in The Munsters), Elijah Wood (The Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit) and Donald Sutherland (Pride and Prejudice among many, many other roles_. Robert Louis Stevenson’s swashbuckling adventure story about fantastical treasure, youthful courage and murderous greed will premiere Saturday, May 5 from 7-11PM (ET/PT) on Syfy.
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Yesterday marked the release of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on Blu-ray, and to celebrate Warner Bros. held a “Midnight Madness” event. If you weren’t able to be there in person in Los Angeles Tuesday night, check out the recap video and images below!

The grand-prize winner of the costume contest, judged remotely by WETA’s Daniel Falconer and Richard Taylor and given a special VIP tour of “Middle-earth”, was an interesting interpretation of a Balrog.
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In anticipation of the the release of the Blu-ray Lord Of The Rings Trilogy Extended Edition on June 28th, Warner Home Video is having a “Middle-earth Midnight Madness” event starting at noon on June 27th at Best Buy’s West Los Angeles location, 11301 W. Pico Boulevard, which will include a costume contest, cast members, and more…and the winner of the costume contest can win an awesome prize, a VIP “Tour of Middle-earth” – an all-expense-paid trip to New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Queenstown), courtesy of Air New Zealand and Weta Workshop. Read below for the full press release.

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Finally! The extended editions of all three Lord Of The Rings movies will be released on Blu-ray on June 28th. A whopping 15 discs are included – 6 Blu-ray discs containing the features plus some of the extras (alas, each movie is divided in half – apparently too big for a standard Blu-ray), plus 9 discs for all the other extras (26 hours worth!). As far as I can tell it is pretty much the same extras as on previous releases, but it is hard to tell with so much stuff…

SFX Magazine in the UK posted the results of a number of polls, including the “Favourite Monsters, Supernatural Beings & Fantasy Creatures” – and the Daleks lead the list of the top 20. Other notable entries include Gollum (5), Babylon 5‘s Shadows (6, not bad for a show nearly 12 years gone…still wish we were getting more), The Borg (11), Pilot from Farscape (12), and the Cybermen (13).

The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy will finally get the high-definition treatment it deserves on April 6th (pre-order NOW! – also available for download and OnDemand on the same date), but we has the Precious in our grubby little hands, we do…and we can says we loves the Precious…yes…except we’s wants it to be the extended Precious…
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Found these on Sci-Fi Wire: First, someone built Minas Tirith out of 420,000 matchsticks over the course of three years – and it looks awesome. And someone else built a foosball table out of Star Wars legos…Read our full article to see some images.
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I just learned of this…finally, The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy is getting the Blu-ray treatment on April 6th! This release is only for the theatrical editions plus the extras, but also includes digital copies as well. Hopefully the extended versions will follow!