Not a single member of my class knew what the Hobbit is. They only knew LOTR because of the movies.
This is, sadly, probably very common.
I don't know anyone (outside the relatively small circle of gamers, SCA members and fantasy fans) who has actually
read LotR, but everyone has seen the movies. Some of them found them 'gay'. And coming across someone who has even
heard of
The Hobbit (the book) or
The Silmarillion is like finding a mermaid in your bathtub.
In the same vein, most people think of
Notre Dame de Paris (
The Hunchback of Notre Dame) as a 'horror' movie........and have, of course, never read the novel......which is VERY good.
The only way you'll ever see a Warhammer or 40K movie that isn't a limited release direct-to-DVD special mail order only type thing is if WalMart starts selling the games and minis and Disney gets in on the action.