The Hobbit Pub has been saved!!!

Since I posted about the plight of The Hobbit Pub, I thought it would be appropriate to do an update. Based on the articles I’ve read it looks as if the pub has been saved. Paul Zaentz of The Saul Zaentz Company has reached out to the pub, and to the media to say that the whole thing has been a huge misunderstanding. Call me a pessimist, but I seriously doubt that the pub owners misunderstood anything. I tend to think that Mr. Zaentz would rather backtrack and take a small licensing fee, rather than have his name and company appear as villains. That being said, it sounds as if The Hobbit Pub will be able to maintain its Tolkien theme by paying a licensing fee of around $100 dollars a year. That sounds like a good deal to me!

What I hadn’t seen until I read Servetus’ post today, was this:

Image courtesy of Servetus’s blog.

I was already impressed by their willingness to speak up in favor of the pub and raise awareness. That they are personally willing to take on the expense of the licensing fee just makes me all the more proud to be a fan of both actors!

I won’t bombard you with article links to all the articles on this, but here is one you can check out.

Save The Hobbit

I hope everyone is enjoying FanstRAvangaza week so far. My first F3 post will be this evening (Central Standard Time).

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In the meantime: This isn’t really Armitage related, but he his in the movies, so I guess it ties in. Has anyone else been paying attention to the plight of this pub called The Hobbit. The pub has been operating under this Tolkien inspired name for more than 20 years. But now that Hollywood is finally in the picture, they are being forced to remove all traces of Tolkien’s work from the establishment. Menu items, decor, the sign out side and even their loyalty cards have to be changed according to the owner of the merchandising license for The Hobbit.

Forgive me, I get that someone paid to own licencing rights. But someone please explain to me how a pub that has already been in business for sooo long is in any way a threat to either the movies or the profits for Saul Zaentz Company, the company that owns the merchandising rights. It seems to me this is just a matter of corporate greed. The pub proprietors have already said that they can’t fight this, they don’t have the money to go up against a big corporation with seemingly unlimited funds. I appreciate people like Stephen Fry, who use their voices to stick up for the little guy:

The Hobbit pub isn’t the first establishment that the Saul Zaentz Company has gone after. Back in November they ordered The Hungry Hobbit, a sandwich shop, to remove all references to the book. Excuse me, the place is located on the street where Tolkien grew up! It seems to me they are just trying to pay their respects to the author in his own back yard. I like quirky places like this pub, and personally think it is a shame that they are being put through this legal battle.

Anyway, if you find this at all frustrating you can follow what’s going on via @savethehobbit on Twitter or on Facebook.

Update: Sir Ian McKellan has weighed in on this now too. Check out what he has to say here.

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Don’t forget to check out the FanstRAvaganza 3 posts thus far! You can find all of the links here.