Saruman appears as a minor villain in "Lego Dimensions", in which he allies himself with main antagonist Lord Vortech. Asteroid 418532 Saruman was named after the wizard and in honor of actor Christopher Lee. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 September 2018 (). [a] The volume published as "The Silmarillion" in 1977 contains four books in addition to the "Quenta Silmarillion". The last of these—"Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"—covers Saruman's earlier history, but was written after "The Lord of the Rings". Note: For ease of reference, citations of "Letters" include
The Lord of the Rings (film series) negotiate with Saul Zaentz who had held the rights to the book since the early 1970s, pitching an adaptation of "The Hobbit" and two films based on "The Lord of the Rings". Negotiations then stalled when Universal Studios offered Jackson a remake of "King Kong". Weinstein was furious, and further problems arose when it turned out Zaentz did not have distribution rights to "The Hobbit"; United Artists, which was in the market, did. By April 1996, the rights question was still not resolved. Jackson decided to move ahead with "King Kong" before filming "The Lord of the Rings", prompting Universal