I have to disagree. Attempting to put my obvious bias aside, my gut says that Lord of the Rings would maybe bring a initial larger spike of attendance and a profitability than Star Trek would, but I get the sense that LOTR is not something that is in the cultural consciousness as much as Star Trek when there are not movies being released. Just the impression I have. And what will click with the average person when they imagine a fun theme park experience as they're planning their vacation deciding which parks to visit? With Star Trek it's easy to immediately conjure the mental image of something like being on the bridge of the Enterprise zooming through space in the middle of a battle with the Klingons, but is there an equivalent with LOTR? Is there an experience out of those movies that folks would get excited about, not to mention something that is easily translatable into a theme park experience? Another point is merchandise... that's obviously a HUGE factor now. I personally don't see the themed merchandising opportunities with Lord of the Rings. The ring, obviously, but what else? I've wracked my brain ever since this rumor surfaced and am at a complete loss for anything that doesn't devolve into traditional souvenirs like t-shirts and such. Hairy Hobbit feet slippers? And I assume there's probably some kind of food and beverage opportunity, but nothing that I think is obvious. But Star Trek has phasers, communicators, tricorders, uniform shirts, Romulan Ale, Cardassian Sunrises, Saurian brandy, Klingon bloodwine, raktajino, tranya, prune juice, green stuff, gagh, plomeek soup, etc., all much more in line with the merchandising model established at the Wizarding World. And my last point is longevity. Yes, Lord of the Rings has a huge place in literary and cinema history and will always be regarded as a timeless epic, BUT will there be more movies or anything that would help support a theme park attraction for years to come? Star Trek is still making movies, probably going to make a return to television within a few years, and just generally isn't likely to stop for a long, long time, keeping any theme park attraction appropriately relevant, perhaps with the occasional refresh. This is all purely my opinion, but I feel like Star Trek is just a little more relatable to the average person, that it's easier and maybe a little more appealing to envision themselves in this cool future, that it's fun to imagine yourself as a starship captain, just like it is to imagine yourself as a wizard. In my experience I just haven't gotten the impression that people feel that way with Lord of the Rings roles. Maybe someone who is a big fan of that franchise could respond and share how they feel it could practically work better in the parks.