Clash of the Empires

Last updated

Clash of the Empires
Directed byJoseph Lawson
Screenplay by Eric Forsberg
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyRichard Vialet
Edited byRob Pallatina
Music byChris Ridenhour
Production
company
Distributed byThe Asylum
Release date
  • February 18, 2013 (2013-02-18)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Clash of the Empires (also known as Lord of the Elves) is an American fantasy/adventure film produced by The Asylum and directed by Joseph Lawson. It stars Christopher Judge, Bai Ling and Sun Korng.

Contents

It was originally titled Age of the Hobbits and set for release direct-to-DVD on December 11, 2012. In the tradition of The Asylum's catalog, the film is a mockbuster of the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey . This led to a lawsuit against The Asylum for trademark infringement. [1] The lawsuit resulted in a temporary restraining order preventing The Asylum from releasing the film on its scheduled release date. [2]

Plot

The film is about a prehistoric struggle between a community of Homo floresiensis (known as "hobbits") and their brutal oppressors, Java Man ("Java Men"). The hobbits ally with early humans against the Javas. According to The Asylum, "In an ancient age, the small, peace-loving hobbits are enslaved by the Java Men, a race of flesh-eating dragon-riders. The young hobbit Goben must join forces with their neighbor giants, the humans, to free his people and vanquish their enemies." [3]

Cast

Warner Bros. lawsuit

Warner Bros., producers of The Hobbit film series, sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Asylum on August 31, 2012. The Asylum responded by altering some of the promotional material for their film, but they refused to take the word "hobbit" out of the film's title. [2] In November 2012, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, MGM and The Hobbit producer Saul Zaentz commenced legal action against The Asylum for Age of the Hobbits, claiming that they were "free-riding" on the worldwide promotional campaign for Peter Jackson's forthcoming films. The Asylum claimed its film is legally sound because its hobbits are not based on the J. R. R. Tolkien creations. [4] The Asylum argued that "Age of the Hobbits is about the real-life human subspecies, Homo floresiensis, discovered in 2003 in Indonesia, which have been uniformly referred to as 'hobbits' in the scientific community." [4]

A lawsuit by Warner Bros. resulted in a temporary restraining order preventing The Asylum from releasing the film on its scheduled release date of December 11. The federal judge presiding over the case found that the film violated the "hobbit" trademark and was likely to cause confusion among consumers. As a result, Age of the Hobbits became the first Asylum film to be blocked from release. A hearing was also scheduled for January 28, 2013 to decide whether the restraining order should become a preliminary injunction. [2]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Return of the King</i> (1980 film) 1980 animated musical television film by Jules Bass

The Return of the King is a 1980 animated musical fantasy television film created by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. It is an adaptation of the 1955 high fantasy novel Lord of the Rings, taking its name from The Return of the King, the third and final volume of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien and is a sequel to the 1977 film The Hobbit.

<i>The Hobbit</i> (1977 film) 1977 animated film directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr.

The Hobbit is a 1977 American animated musical television special created by Rankin/Bass, a studio known for their holiday specials, and animated by Topcraft, a precursor to Studio Ghibli. The film is an adaptation of the 1937 book of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien, and was first broadcast on NBC in the United States on Sunday, November 27, 1977.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien Estate</span> Legal body managing estate of J.R.R Tolkien

The Tolkien Estate is the legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright for most of his works. The individual copyrights have for the most part been assigned by the estate to subsidiary entities such as the J. R. R. Tolkien Discretionary Settlement and the Tolkien charitable trust. The various holdings of the Tolkien family, including the estate, have been organized under The Tolkien Company, the directors of which were Christopher Tolkien until August 2017 and his wife Baillie Tolkien, and J. R. R. Tolkien's grandson Michael George Tolkien. The executors of the estate proper were Christopher Tolkien, who was sole literary executor, and, Cathleen Blackburn of Maier Blackburn, who has been the estate's solicitor for many years.

Middle-earth Enterprises, formerly known as Tolkien Enterprises, is a subdivision of the Embracer Freemode division of Embracer Group and formerly a trade name for a division of The Saul Zaentz Company. The subdivision owns the worldwide exclusive rights to certain elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's two most famous literary works: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These elements include the names of characters contained within as well as the names of places, objects and events within them, and certain short phrases and sayings from the works.

<i>Homo floresiensis</i> Archaic human from Flores, Indonesia

Homo floresiensis( also known as "Flores Man") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.

The word hobbit was used by J. R. R. Tolkien as the name of a race of small humanoids in his fantasy fiction, the first published being The Hobbit in 1937. The Oxford English Dictionary, which added an entry for the word in the 1970s, credits Tolkien with coining it. Since then, however, it has been noted that there is prior evidence of the word, in a 19th-century list of legendary creatures. In 1971, Tolkien stated that he remembered making up the word himself, admitting that there was nothing but his "nude parole" to support the claim that he was uninfluenced by such similar words as hobgoblin. His choice may have been affected on his own admission by the title of Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey has pointed out several parallels, including comparisons in The Hobbit, with the word "rabbit".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollywood accounting</span> Opaque or creative accounting methods

Hollywood accounting is the opaque or creative accounting methods used by the film, video, television and music industry to budget and record profits for creative projects. Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project, thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in taxes and royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on net profit.

The Asylum is an American independent film production and distribution company that focuses on low-budget, direct-to-video films. It is notorious for producing titles that capitalize on productions by major studios, often using film titles and scripts very similar to those of current blockbusters in order to lure customers. These titles have been dubbed "mockbusters" by the press. Its titles are distributed by Echo Bridge Home Entertainment, GT Media, and as of 2015, Cinedigm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle-earth in video games</span> Video games inspired by J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth

There are many video games that have been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's works set in Middle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such as Electronic Arts, Vivendi Games, Melbourne House, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

A mockbuster is a film created to exploit the publicity of another major motion picture with a similar title or subject. Mockbusters are often made with a low budget and quick production to maximize profits. "Mockbuster" is a portmanteau of the words "mock" and "blockbuster".

<i>The Hobbit</i> (film series) 2012–2014 fantasy film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson

The Hobbit is a series of three epic high fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson. The films are subtitled An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). The films are based on the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, with large portions of the trilogy inspired by the appendices to The Return of the King, which expand on the story told in The Hobbit, as well as new material and characters written especially for the films. Together they act as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vídeo Brinquedo</span> Brazilian animation studio

Vídeo Brinquedo is a Brazilian animation studio, located in São Paulo, known for producing animated films widely viewed as cheap mockbusters of comparable, more successful films from studios such as Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation, 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios. The company was founded in 1995 as a Brazilian subsidiary of American distributor Spot Films, to distribute animation with the intention of distribution in its home market of Brazil, then seemingly split up and became Vídeo Brinquedo in 2004; later on, in 2006, they expanded to North America with the falling costs of DVD duplication and packaging, and easier access to language translation services. Most of Brinquedo's films are still available on DVD and streaming services, though it is unclear who are the current owners of the studio's output.

Eric Forsberg is an American writer. He wrote and directed the feature film Mega Piranha, as well as the writer of the feature film Snakes on a Train, one of the first mockbusters produced and released by The Asylum. He also wrote the screenplays for 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea and War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, also for The Asylum. He directed the film Alien Abduction which aired on Sci Fi Channel, as well as Night of the Dead which aired on Chiller TV. Other writer and director credits include the political thriller Torture Room, and the stoner comedy Sex Pot as well as Monster, Almighty Thor, Arachnoquake, and Age of the Hobbits. He also worked as a Co-Producer and assistant director on numerous films for Christopher Coppola and Alain Silver, including White Nights, Bel Air, and Palmer's Pickup. In his early years Forsberg was an improvisational comedy instructor at The Players Workshop and The Second City Training Center in Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hotfile</span> File hosting website

Hotfile was a one-click file hosting website founded by Hotfile Corp in 2006 in Panama City, Panama. On December 4, 2013, Hotfile ceased all operations, the same day as signing a $4 million settlement with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA); the settlement had previously been misreported as $80 million.

<i>Trouble with the Curve</i> 2012 sports drama film by Robert Lorenz

Trouble with the Curve is a 2012 American sports drama film directed by Robert Lorenz and starring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, Matthew Lillard, and John Goodman. The film revolves around an aging baseball scout whose daughter joins him on a scouting trip. Filming began in March 2012, and the film was released on September 21, 2012.

Jack the Giant Killer is a 2013 American fantasy film produced by The Asylum and directed by Mark Atkins. A modern take of the fairy tales "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk", the film stars Ben Cross and Jane March. It is a mockbuster of Jack the Giant Slayer. It was released on DVD in the UK as The Giant Killer.

Professor Michael John Morwood was a New Zealand archaeologist best known for discovering Homo floresiensis. In 2012, he received the Rhys Jones Medal by the Australian Archaeological Association.

<i>Warner Bros. Inc. v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.</i> American legal case

Warner Bros. Inc. v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., 720 F.2d 231, the case of Superman v. The Greatest American Hero, is the third case in a Second Circuit trilogy of 20th century copyright infringement cases in which the proprietors of Superman copyrights sued other companies for publishing fictional exploits of a cape-wearing superhero. Although the plaintiffs were successful in the first two cases, Superman v. Wonderman and Superman v. Captain Marvel, they were completely unsuccessful in Superman v. The Greatest American Hero. The court held that "as a matter of law. .. 'The Greatest American Hero' is not sufficiently similar to the fictional character Superman, the hero of comic books, television, and more recently films, so that claims of copyright infringement and unfair competition may be dismissed without consideration by a jury."

<i>The Conjuring</i> Universe American horror media franchise

The Conjuring Universe is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of supernatural horror films. The franchise is produced by New Line Cinema, the Safran Company, and Atomic Monster and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The films present a dramatization of the real-life cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent yet controversial cases of haunting. The main series follows their attempts to assist people who find themselves possessed by demonic spirits, while the spin-off films focus on the origins of some of the entities the Warrens have encountered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lego The Lord of the Rings</span> Lego theme

Lego The Lord of the Rings is a Lego theme based on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and the novel by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. It is licensed from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. The theme was first introduced in 2012. The first sets appeared in 2012, to coincide with a release of the video game Lego The Lord of the Rings. Subsequent sets based on The Hobbit film trilogy would also be released and the video game Lego The Hobbit was released in 2014. The product line was discontinued by the end of 2015. Later, the theme was relaunched in January 2023 with three new sets released as the part of the Lego BrickHeadz theme. In February 2023, The Lego Group unveiled a new Rivendell set that released on 8 March 2023 as the part of the Lego Icons theme.

References

  1. Belloni, Matthew (November 7, 2012). "The Hobbit Movie Producers sue Age of the Hobbits Studio for Trademark Infringement (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved November 12, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Fritz, Ben (December 10, 2012). "'Hobbit' knockoff release blocked by judge". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 11, 2012.
  3. Moore, Trent (November 8, 2012). "Warner Bros. officially trying to kill that hobbit mockbuster". blastr. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
  4. 1 2 "The Hobbit producers sue 'mockbuster' film company". BBC. November 8, 2012. Retrieved November 10, 2012.