“IT MIGHT BE POSSIBLE TO MAKE ONE OR MORE FILMS FROM THE THREE BOOKS”
 
THE HOBBIT AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS ARE CONSIDERED FOR FILM ADAPTATION
 
Elstree’s Studios’ glowing original report on The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings
11pp. Typed on rectos only. Reader’s delivery stamp to first page dated 27th February 1968.
Elstree Studios’ original reader’s report on The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, made at a significant moment in the history of the film rights for Tolkien’s work.
 
Tolkien’s Hollywood agent had first sold the film rights for The Hobbit in 1962 to Rembrandt Films, resulting in the first ever screen adaptation of Tolkien’s work, Gene Dietch’s 1967 film for The Hobbit.
 
Following this, Sassoon sought to sell the future rights for both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings to a single rights holder.
 
Clearly working to a tight schedule, ABPC's Mr. R. Groves borrowed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings from Boreham Wood Public Library on 13 February 1968, spent six days reading them, and then wrote a lengthy, highly detailed report, synopsising the cycle over nine typed, single-space, highly detailed pages.
 
Groves’ analysis of the books’ long-term commercial prospects was astute:
“The Hobbit’ seems the most promising subject -- either for film or TV use.
It introduces those strange, attractive creatures, hobbits, it has a hobbit as a main character, and the story-line is fairly straightforward. Gollum and Smaug are other figures likely to win wide popularity, and perhaps afford opportunity for exploitation on a large scale.
 
This strange world and its creatures can be realised visually only in the cartoon film, on Disney lines -- and a feature film might therefore be preferable to a TV series or serial. Success with ‘The Hobbit’ might then make possible a series, based on the various parts of ‘The Lord of the Rings.
 
These books tell a series of most complicated, involved stories, contain hundreds of characters, and include massive spectacular scenes. [...] By centring the story on the four hobbits, and seeing the vast events through their eyes, as it were, it might be possible to make one or more films from the three books...”
 
On the basis of Groves’s recommendation, ABPC would have presumably tried to secure the new rights package being offered by Tolkien’s agent.
 
However, in the end, these rights were secured on 3rd May 1968 by Katza-Berne Productions, who then sold the rights to United Artists Corporation. In 1976, they sold the rights to Saul Zaentz, who have licenced all subsequent adaptations of Tolkien’s work through Midde-earth Enterprises.
 
Film production companies have been basing themselves at Elstree since 1914, and in most cases, their archives have been dispersed, lost or destroyed. This unique and hitherto unknown document from surviving ABPC reader reports has not been seen since its composition sixty years ago and has never before been offered for sale.