TOP-EARNING DEAD CELEBRITIES OF 2022

Checked out but still cashing in.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien $500 mil DIED: September 2, 1973 (81) CAUSE: Pneumonia It’s been a Sauron-size struggle to get Tolkien’s work onto the big screen. He put the kibosh on one film starring the Beatles and directed by Stanley Kubrick, while Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 Lord of the Rings movie was poorly received by fans. Rings are nice, but brands are better. Forget about rings—how about “one brand to rule them all”? The properties of J.R.R. Tolkien, the long­dead Oxford don who wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, struck gold in 2022 with the $500 million sale of a slew of Middle Earth– related rights, including film and TV, to Embracer Group, a $1.8 billion (2021 revenue) Swedish video game conglomerate home to properties ranging from Tomb Raider to Hot Wheels. The August deal was…

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Forbes (Digital) - 1 Issue, December/January 2023

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