We know hobbits, elves, goblins, trolls and werewolves are very popular on a global scale since John Ronald Reuel Tolkien wrote the book The Hobbit in 1937.
If you would like to read this book then you can buy it right now for just $0.01 plus $3.99 in shipping on Amazon or if you are unemployed then drop me a line and I will ship you one.
Tolkien was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire on 01/01/1972. Oxford University conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
If you don’t like to read books then you can download the film right now for just $4.99 on Amazon or if you are unemployed then drop me a line and I will send you $1.50 to rent the Blu-Ray Disc at a Redbox near you.
LOTR
It all started in 2001 when the film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released by Three time Academy Award Winner Sir Peter Robert Jackson.
I am not going to discuss the success of the books or the films in this financial article. There are thousands of excellent articles written by the fans out there.
There are only three groups of people on this planet:
The many who work for Peter Jackson, the few who Peter Jackson works for them and a very smart and very small third group that currently belongs to the first group but want to become members of the second group.
If you are from the first group and you follow my lead then you will become a member in that select group that makes money with Peter Jackson.
I work at Subway. I don’t work for Peter Jackson
Some of you may be thinking that, but the truth is, you are already working for Peter Jackson and you don’t even know it. When I say you are working for Peter Jackson I don’t mean he is your employer and he signs your paychecks. What I mean is that you give a small part of your salary to him. In other words, you PAY HIM.
Here is how it works for the first group which is pretty much everybody in the world, with the exception of the second group, of course.
You go to the movie theater and you buy a ticket to see LOTR. Companies like Cinemark (NYSE: CNK), Regal (NYSE: RGC) or Dalian Wanda Group keep 40% or less and the rest goes to the distributor which in this case is Time Warner (NYSE: TWX)
Distributors only get a 10% or less distribution fee and the rest goes to the producer which in this case is WingNut Films (Peter Jackson owns this company) and The Saul Saentz Company (Saul Saentz owns this company)
In 1976 Saul Zaentz acquired certain rights in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In 1978 he produced an animated version of The Lord of the Rings. Through Middle-earth Enterprises, Saul Zaentz owns the worldwide film, stage and merchandise rights to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Producers of films don’t usually have $93 million to actually make a film. They are more of the creative type like directors, writers, actors and that sort of thing.
The actual cash is invested by Executive Producers which could be wealthy individuals or companies.
Newcomers to the film industry usually don’t get paid and all the cash goes straight to the Executive Producers.
More established producers like Woody Allen or Steven Spielberg get most of the profits.
Production Companies are not public companies, which means you cannot invest in them. If you want to make money with hobbits then you need to invest in Time Warner.
Each time somebody buys or rents a Peter Jackson film he gets paid.
If you are watching the film on HBO (Time Warner owns this company) then you already paid that month a few dollars to them and they paid millions for the television rights to Peter Jackson and Saul Saentz.
Even if you are watching the film on the CW Network Television (Time Warner owns 50% of this company and Viacom (NYSE: VIA) owns the other 50%) for free. The corporate sponsors like Coca-Cola or Ford are paying the bill.
If you live on this planet then you already gave some cash one way or another to Peter Jackson.
What about the second group?
There are 934,790,000 shares of Time Warner. Assuming each shareholder is holding at least 100 shares, you end up with about 9,000,000 Time Warner shareholders in total for the whole world.
That may seem like a lot of owners for a business but it only represents like 0.1% of the population.
Contrary to popular belief these people ARE NOT BILLIONAIRES. They are just regular people like you and me. If you have at least $2,000 then you can be a Time Warner shareholder too and watch every movie ever made for free for the rest of your life. More about that later.
Have you ever wondered how many people actually own Apple or Toyota? Just follow these simple steps:
- Visit Yahoo! Finance
- Enter the symbol for the company (Try MCD)
- Click Key Statistics
- Shares outstanding is the number we want.
- Divide that number by 100
A share is like a deed to a house or a title to a car, except to a company.
A house or a car is usually owned by an individual. Companies are owned by millions of people from around the world. If you don’t own any companies then you really need to contact me. I will help you to buy a few shares. I won’t charge you for this. Do it right now. It’s important.
Shareholders make money every time the first group goes to see The Hobbit or any other of the thousands of films already released by Warner Brothers since 1903.
I am convinced. Where do I sign?
Just open a brokerage account with at least $2,000 and buy at least 400 shares of TWX. Shares go up and down. You need to contact me before you buy them so I can tell you exactly when to buy them and at what price or you may lose money. I will also let you know when to sell them.
If you invest a small part of your paycheck each month buying a few shares then you may make enough money each month to pay your cable bill, your Netflix bill, your Amazon Prime bill, your Hulu bill and you won’t have to pay for a movie ticket or a Redbox Blu-Ray Disc ever again.
Please do not try to pick stocks on your own or you may lose money.
Life is hard if you don’t follow me.
Check out Are Vampires a good investment?