If Tolkien were alive today...

[Gerbil]

Just posting in the awards thread made me think of something.
There, I basically stated my belief that if Tolkien were alive today, the music is the one part of the whole film lot that he'd appreciate and quite possibly love.

Now, obviously he'd be less pleased about the story - given how much of a perfectionist he was, but this begs the question (to me it does, anyway!)....

If Tolkien were alive today, would New Line have deliberately shut him out of the film-making / screenplay writing process?

I honestly think they would, given both the knowledge that he's a perfectionist, and (to their mind) has no idea of what people want to see on the screen - IE he's not the man to be behind adapting book to screen.

Or, more interestingly, they'd have him on board to start with, then get annoyed at him 'meddling' and distance him more and more from any practical input.

I still can't think of the changes they made to Gandalf, Denethor and (more importantly) Aragorn without cringing, so Eru Alone knows what a certain JRRT would think.