j.r.r.r.’S purchase of Middle-earth enterprises opens up a wealth of opportunities to put all kinds of new spins on the characters, stories, and places. embracer bought (almost) all the rights to Middle-earth. What else can embracer do with all those juicy IPs, and how much of Middle-earth does the Swedish holding group own?.

Warner Bros. retains some feature-length production rights as a part of the license it obtained from Middle-earth enterprises in the late 1990s. That’s how we got the Peter Jackson movies and why we’re getting the lord of the rings: the war of the rohirrim animated feature due in 2024.

Middle-Earth enterprises owns exclusive worldwide rights to motion picture, merchandising, stage and other rights in certain literary works of J.R. Tolkien. This means embracer can pick from any one of its 120 game studios and say,’you make an eomer’s horse adventure game,’ and that’d be perfectly fine, as long as it was book eomer and not Karl urban eomer.

In 2021, the company acquired asmodee, a French board, role-playing, and card game company that has published lotr-flavored card and board games.

Embracer has made it clear it’s going to exploit the hell out of its new precious. Instead of a licensee, it has become a licensor.

Middle-Earth enterprises’ licensees make everything from replica jewelry and swords to cool Elven keycaps, T-shirts, bicycles, honey, and tiny Hobbit houses.