The world had to wait until after the death of the now-famous author John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, to reward him with the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the “father” of modern fantasy literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Tolkien sixth on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945″ while Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning dead celebrity in 2009.
Originally, Tolkien wrote the adventures of halflings and goblins and elves to amuse his grandchildren, which later on ended up selling over 150 million copies. The trilogy of the Ring is considered among the top five best selling novels ever. And today, The Lord of the Rings stands as one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time.
Check out the latest video from OnlineMBA.com (Thanks to Google, I was asked to remove the link to OnlineMBA.com, as it was harming their search result rating!) to see the breakdown of the economic impact of this cult fantasy epic, so far. If the successes of the similarly hyped Star Wars prequels are any indication, this month’s long awaited release of The Hobbit could mean another $2 billion in ticket sales for the franchise.
So, what do you think ?