Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Time Warner Inc.'s New Line Cinema was sued for $150 million by relatives of the late ``Lord of the Rings'' author J.R.R. Tolkien, who say they haven't received any money from movies based on the books.

Four members of the family, who are the trustees of the Tolkien charitable trust, filed a complaint today in state court in Los Angeles. They seek an order allowing them to terminate New Line's rights to ``The Hobbit,'' another Tolkien book that the studio is making into a movie.

The ``Lord of the Rings'' films, released in 2001, 2002 and 2003, are among the most financially successful movies ever produced with worldwide receipts of about $6 billion, $3 billion from box-office sales and $3 billion from DVD sales, television and other ``ancillary'' revenue, the trustees said in their complaint.

``New Line has not paid the plaintiffs even one penny of its contractual share of gross receipts despite the billions of dollars of gross revenue generated by these wildly successful motion pictures,'' Steven Maier, the trustees' lawyer, said in the statement.

Robert Pini, a spokesman for New Line in New York, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

New Line in December settled a lawsuit with ``Lord of the Rings'' director Peter Jackson who had sued in 2005, claiming the studio had miscalculated his share of the receipts. Jackson will produce two movies based on ``The Hobbit'' for New Line, scheduled for release in 2010 and 2011.

7.5 Percent of Gross

The Tolkien family members, who also represent a separate trust for the author's descendants, claim in their lawsuit that they're entitled to 7.5 percent of the movies' gross receipts. They accuse New Line of breach of contract and fraud among other allegations.

They claim in the suit that New Line has included among the production costs the share of the movies' profits it paid to Miramax. The plaintiffs also claim that New Line bases their share of DVD sales on only 20 percent of the actual sales.

Time Warner rose 4 cents to $15.63 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has dropped 5.3 percent this year.

The case is Christopher Reuel Tolkien v. New Line Cinema Corp., BC385294, Los Angeles County Superior Court.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 11, 2008 18:43 EST