Notorious Lord of the Rings nut Stephen Colbert joined Peter Jackson on Tolkien Reading Day to announce that he will be co-writing a new LOTR film, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past. The film, set 14 years after Frodo Baggins’ journey to Valinor, reunites us with Sam, Merry and Pippin as they retrace the early steps of their adventure as told in The Fellowship of the Ring – sections of the book that did not make it to screen. This means we’ll be seeing the hobbits’ perilous experience in the Barrow-downs and, of course, the seemingly unfilmable section featuring Tom Bombadil. The film will also feature Sam’s daughter Elanor, who delves into the history of the War of the Ring after discovering a “long-buried secret,” according to the film’s synopsis.
Colbert will co-write the film alongside LOTR veteran Philippa Boyens and his son, Peter McGee, once his tenure on The Late Show concludes in May.
The film is still a ways off, but Tolkienites will only need to wait until Dec. 2027 for the next film set in Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, directed by Gollum himself, Andy Serkis.
This will sound hypocritical coming from a Star Wars fan who counts Rogue One as one of his favorite movies in that franchise, but I’m having a hard time getting overly excited about these interim/fill-in-the-blank stories adapting sections of Tolkien’s masterpiece that didn’t make it into Jackson’s original films. It reminds me too much of Jackson’s Hobbit movies, which turned a fairly simple adventure story that could have been told in one film into a sprawling and arguably bloated eight-hour trilogy.
I feel like I would rather have stories from The Silmarillion adapted into films than these “deleted scene” adventures, but hobbits truly are amazing creatures. I’m hoping I’ll be surprised.
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