William Lawrence Snyder

William Lawrence Snyder (14 February, 1918 – 3 June, 1998) was an academy award winning American film producer. He was the producer of the first animated film of The Hobbit in 1967. The film was directed by Gene Deitch and was made in under a month. The running time for the film was a minuscule twelve minutes and was produced simply so that Snyder could extend his license for The Lord of the Rings, and sell it back to Tolkien and his publishers for $100,000.