Thanks to his Barrow blade, which was forged by a dead man. As far as prophecy loophole kills go, I'd say this was a TRIPLE KILL.
If I said that I didn't mean to. If I didn't, then I was misquoted. In any case , the author, great as he was, was only human. There are things I don't like about his story.
People can type in a hurry. By the way, Tolkien may be the greatest fantasy writer of our time, and he was a scholar, but he was still a human being. That means he's not above writing something inane in one of his stories, nor is he above criticism for it.
But, he wasn't just a human being making this up willy nilly. He was a scholar and a linguist. One might even call him an expert in language. So, I think criticizing him on that level, is fairly foolish, unless you too have a similar level of education in his field. Now, is he above criticism, no. I think he's a dreadful story teller. Excellent world builder. But as a story teller: BO-ring.
It's a bit of a shame, really, that the WB doesn't have the rights to make Middle-Earth movies outside of LotR and Hobbit adaptations, as it'd be much easier to get a woman-centric high fantasy movie along the lines of, say, a Tauriel solo flick greenlit if it could be tied into the Middle-Earth brand. Alas... No solo flick spin-off for you!
If it makes enough money, lawyers can ask the Tolkien estate and whoever is required to make such a thing happen. I can imagine the howls of outrage from purists of the novels, but I'd be willing to give the work a look.
^ And all signs point to the Tolkien Estate, at least so long as Christopher Tolkien is in charge, saying, "oh, hell no."
No surprise there. The tenor of the books that looks at Tolkien's development of Middle Earth is suffused with Christopher Tolkien's exposition of what dad meant rather than letting the man's work speak for itself. He's the keeper of the 'One True and Catholic Vision' of Middle Earth and the work would be better off without so dogmatic a gate keeper.
I find it hard to imagine how any big film production could have wrung more money out of the LoTR franchise whilst doing the stories justice. I also find the idea of spinoff TV or low budget movie serials would of necessity dilute and distort the great vision. I know this because that's what serials always do. Also the idea that the estate of Tolkein is throttling creativity is frankly laughable. It took half a century for Peter Jackson to come along and do it justice. Now everyone thinks it was easy.
Haven't there already been some original Middle-Earth tales told via the game tie-ins to the films? War in the North springs to mind. But as far as new films, TV shows or books go.....Nah, never gonna happen, not in a million years.