The Lord of the Rings filed a trademark application for VR integration

Middle-earth Enterprises, formerly known as Tolkien Enterprises, has filed a trademark application for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to the USPTO on September 15.

Middle-earth Enterprises holds commercial rights for Tolkien’s famous titles, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and many proper names and short phrases from the books.

According to the trademark application published by trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis, Middle-earth Enterprises is planning on offering live musical and stage performance, theater productions, online and virtual reality games as well as amusement park services.

Details around the company’s plans are scarce but it points to the entertainment and production industry’s interest in the Metaverse and virtual reality technologies.

Walt Disney’s CEO recently described the company’s vision to use AR to enhance storytelling while he referenced an eight-minute augmented reality film that premiered this month on Disney+. 

It has also appointed Mike White to head the newly created Next Generation Storytelling and Consumer Experiences unit, whose purpose is to create a technological toolkit for Disney’s creative executives to employ.