Tolkien estate and Warner Bros settle Hobbit lawsuit

Tolkien's estate had accused the defendants of violating a 1969 agreement allowing the sale 'tangible' merchandise, by associating the books with the 'morally-questionable (and decidedly non-literary) world of online and casino gambling'.

A scene from The Hobbit: The desolation of Smaug. Warner Bros / AP

The estate of JRR Tolkien has settled an $80 million (Dh290 million) lawsuit against Warner Bros over the licensing of online games, slot machines and other gambling-related merchandise based on the author's books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The copyright lawsuit was filed in November 2012. Total worldwide grosses exceeded $2.9 billion for each of the big-screen trilogies for The Lord of the Rings, released from 2001 to 2003, and The Hobbit, released from 2012 to 2014, according to Box Office Mojo.