Warner Bros. has unveiled that Stephen Colbert and his son are developing a brand new “Lord of the Rings” movie. The announcement came Tuesday night via the studio’s various social media accounts.
The video announcement opened with “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson giving a quick update about the next film in the “Lord of the Rings” franchise: Andy Serkis’ “The Hunt for Gollum.” Jackson said of the project, “Andy is doing a terrific job. It’s looking amazing. The script is coming together really well and I think it’s going to be a really good film.”
Jackson then teased his “very special partner,” who will be helping develop the film after “The Hunt for Gollum.” That partner was none other than “The Late Show Host” Colbert, who Jackson patched in through a video call. Colbert, a vocal Tolkien fanatic, then explained that his film will come from chapters of “The Fellowship of the Ring” that didn’t make it into Jackson’s 2001 adaptation.
“You know what the books mean to me, and what your films mean to me,” Colbert told Jackson. “But the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in [‘The Fellowship of the Ring’] that ya’ll never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically the chapter ‘Three is Company’ [Chapter III] through ‘Fog on the Barrow-Downs’ [Chapter VIII]. And I thought, ‘Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?’”
The late-night host said that after coming up with this idea, he began discussing it with his son, screenwriter Peter McGee, and worked out a “framing device” for the film. After the groundwork was laid, Colbert called Jackson, and over the last two years, they’ve been working with screenwriter Philippa Boyens to develop a script.
Tolkien penned his legendary fantasy trilogy in the 1950s after the success of his 1937 book, “The Hobbit.” Peter Jackson adapted “The Lord of the Rings” into three films, released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Widely considered to be Jackson’s most celebrated work, the films earned 17 Oscar wins, with 11 of those going to the final chapter, “The Return of the King.” Jackson also adapted “The Hobbit,” splitting the comparatively slim novel into three parts. Those movies were released in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
More to come…
