‘The Lord Of The Rings’ IP Broker Says Franchise Can Be As Big As Marvel & ‘Star Wars’, Reveals New Information about Embracer Group Deal – Mipcom Cannes

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The Lord of the Rings franchise can reach the $6B-plus scale of Marveland Star Wars, according to the man who brokered the sale of the IP to Sweden’s Embracer Group, who revealed new information about the deal.

ACF Investment Bank CEO Thomas Dey told Mipcom Cannes Lord of the Rings is one of around six “pieces of IP of this magnitude on the planet,” which will now have its potential unlocked by Embracer.

Embracer picked up the motion picture, video game, board game, merchandizing, theme parks and stage production rights relating to The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises over the summer as well as matching rights in other Middle-earth-related literary works authorized by the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins, which have yet to be explored.

The timing was good, coming a few weeks before Amazon’s Rings of Power TV series launched. “I think this asset has the ability to get to [Marvel and Star Wars’] scale,” Dey told a packed Mipcom keynote. “Someone has just needed to have the belief that this can be as ambitious as it can be.” While financials of the transaction, which completed a few weeks ago, have not been disclosed, Dey joked: “We let bidders come in and make bids, gave guide prices on our thoughts and then [Embracer] halved that.” Embracer’s focus is likely to be on gaming, which CEO Lars Wingefors said is the 15,000-staff public company’s “strongest area of growth and monetization,” as he spoke alongside Dey.