@Encosen Sadly, EA does not have the license for LOTR anymore. The license is now with Warner. So EA can't sell, remaster, remake or make compatibility patches for any LOTR title that they've developed.
It's unknown for how long Warner got the license, so it may be a while until it will be again up for bidding. But i doubt that EA will go again for an external IP. Most of the big publishers/developers prefer to develop their own IP's in our days, as the licensing cost increased a lot in the past 10 years. As when a license expires and moves on the sales of the developed products must stop, most of the big guys prefer to create their own IP's. That way, they are not dependent on the length of the license and have complete control over their products.
Unless the copyright law changes to take in consideration such situations, we will probably see fewer and fewer games based on external IP's.
I would love to see EA's LOTR: BFME series back in sales, too, but i am aware that the possibility is really low and unlikely to happen in the near future.
