I followed the links to animator Gene Deitch’s original post, and he seems a bit confused. He speaks of film rights bought from “the Tolkien estate lawyers” in 1964. But Tolkien was alive in 1964 (he died in 1973), and I doubt he had any lawyers at that time (though his publishers did).
A new witticism can be crafted from this variant fantasy. A princess is worth a dozen dwarves.
Hoch hech! Endut!
I followed the links to animator Gene Deitch’s original post, and he seems a bit confused. He speaks of film rights bought from “the Tolkien estate lawyers” in 1964. But Tolkien was alive in 1964 (he died in 1973), and I doubt he had any lawyers at that time (though his publishers did).
Make that “the mostly not-animated Hobbit movie”!