Movie producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein have sued Time Warner Inc for at least $75 million over its decision to divide the screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit into three parts, and refusing to pay them for the second and third films.

In a complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the Weinstein brothers and Miramax said executives at Warner Brothers and its New Line Cinema unit chose to split The Hobbit as a pretext to deprive them of five per cent of the gross receipts from the last two films.

The Weinsteins said they had in 1998 sold New Line the movie rights to The Hobbit and Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings, after having spent more than $10 million to adapt them.

Warner Brothers countered that the Weinsteins simply made a business mistake when they sold the film rights to New Line.

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