The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition (November 4th, 2013) Pre-orders

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by Buddy Ackerman

Also, EiV will lose the rights, probably by that point. All of their other New Lines films have started reverting back to Warners after a period of ten years (which is why you can get Warner versions of Blade and Blade II but Blade: Trinity is still EiV; same with the Final Destination films). As LOTR was always a trilogy the likelihood is their ten year license will come to an end at the end of this year (ten years since the release of Return of the King).

Originally Posted by Buddy Ackerman

If EiV still have the rights (and I doubt they will as all New Line films from before, during and after the LOTR period have had 10 year contracts so there's no reason why LOTR will be any different, despite how big a hit it turned out to be)... We won't find out for another couple of years (although if we start seeing WB LOTR discs next year then that may answer it)

The Lord of the Rings blu-rays are being released through Warner Brothers next month. So the above debate could have been avoided if we'd have waited a couple of weeks...

So there'll be nothing to stop Warners releasing a boxset of the complete Middle-Earth saga when The Hobbit trilogy is complete. The only question is when we'll see it. My guess is a theatrical boxset of the six mid-2015 and possibly a boxset of the extended films for Christmas 2015. However, for the latter, they may hold off until the next September (2016), just like they did for the deluxe Harry Potter and Dark Knight sets. Who knows, maybe we'll get all three with the third boxset having extras and special packaging like the HP and DK ones.