by Sallie Anglin

Peter Jackson, director of the award-winning and commercially successful [I]Lord of the Rings[/I] trilogy, is suing New Line Cinema for more of the licensing profits the movie produced. Jackson also claims that New Line failed to pay for the script and song lyrics used in film-based videogame developed by Electronic Arts.

Although the grievance did not mention specific game names, [I]Lord of the Rings: The Third Age[/I] was based on the entire trilogy, and [I]The Two Towers[/I] and [I]The Return of the King[/I] also borrow heavily from the films. Among the borrowed resources include the Annie Lennox song, “Into the West,” the lyrics of which were written by Jackson’s partner, Fran Walsh.

Wingnut Films listed eighteen other grievances against New Line. In an official statement, one of Jackson’s attorneys, Peter Nelson, stated that they “have attempted to solve our differences with New Line Cinema through the normal auditing process. That has proven unsatisfactory thus far.” New Line has not commented on the situation.