Stephen Colbert is writing a Lord of the Rings movie
Shadow of the Past will cover some of the ground Peter Jackson skipped in his trilogy
Warner Bros. and Peter Jackson are returning to Middle-earth in an interesting and unexpected way. This morning, Jackson released a short video and provided a brief update about Andy Serkis's film Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and announced a new project: Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, with one of the most qualified people to write it: Stephen Colbert.
In the video, Colbert explains he had been thinking about some of the material that didn't make it into Jackson's original trilogy, and how those un-adapted episodes might fit into them. "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?"
Colbert worked with his son Peter and came up with a way to frame it. He eventually brought up the idea to Jackson in 2024, who liked it, and they began working with Philippa Boyens to develop the story. They've since brought it to New Line Cinemas and Warner Bros., who've set the wheels into motion to continue its progress.
The project comes after Warner Bros. has been working to expand the Middle-earth franchise. Back in 2022, film producer Saul Zaentz's company sold the film rights that it had long held for The Lord of the Rings to Embracer Group, a Swedish media holding company, which had produced a handful of video games set in the world. They made their intentions clear at the time of the sale: they would explore "additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and continue to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictive world through merchandising and other experiences."
That's since been realized: a year later, Warner Bros. struck a deal with the company for more Lord of the Rings films (joining the animated film War of the Rohirrim, which was announced in 2021), announcing in 2024 that they would be bringing back Jackson, Boyens, and Fran Walsh to produce a pair of new films, the first of which would be The Hunt for Gollum.
Andrew Liptak
In the video, Jackson noted that Serkis has been hard at work on the script and preproduction for the film: "a lot of the old team is back together again, familiar faces, and some new faces... it's looking amazing." The project is reportedly bringing back Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Elijah Wood as Frodo, as well as Kate Winslet in some unknown capacity. It's tentatively scheduled to hit theaters for December 17th, 2027. (All of this is separate from Amazon's Middle-earth franchise, The Rings of Power, which recently wrapped up its third season, and which is expected to start work on its fourth season later this year.)
Now, it looks like they've settled on that second film, The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
Colbert outlined what he had in mind: looking at a handful of chapters early in The Fellowship of the Ring that Jackson largely skipped in his adaptation, starting with the book's third chapter "Three is Company," and running through "A Short Cut to Mushrooms," "A Conspiracy Unmasked," "The Old Forest," "In the House of Tom Bombadil," and "Fog on the Barrow-downs."
The pair buried the lede in their video. this is a film that could take on one of the trilogy's biggest omissions: the absence of Tom Bombadil, who Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin encounter shortly after they set out from the Shire.
To back up a bit: in The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf set out from Bag End after Bilbo's party and in which Frodo was given the home and the Ring. Realizing that there's something off about the ring, he does some research and discovers that it's likely The One Ring, heads back, and tells Frodo that they need to bring it to the Elves in Rivendell to figure out their next steps. Sam accompanies him and they're eventually joined by Merry and Pippin.
In the books, this takes place over 18 years. In "Three is Company," Frodo departs and is joined by Sam and Pippin days later, where they then encounter one of the Nazgûl. In "A Short Cut to Mushrooms," they meet Farmer Maggot, who helps them with some food, and they're then joined by Merry.
These parts are in Jackson's adaptation, but they're squished around a bit, but he largely skipped what followed in "A Conspiracy Unmasked", in which Frodo tells his companions about the Ring and his quest at his new house in the village of Crickhollow, where they decide to go through the Old Forest to evade the Black Riders who're hunting for the Ring.
In "The Old Forest", the quartet gets lost and encounters a malevolent tree called Old Man Willow, which traps Merry and Pippin, and who're then saved by Tom Bombadil, who lives nearby. They head to his house in "In the House of Tom Bombadil," where he reveals that he knows about their quest and it's shown that the Ring doesn't affect him. From there, the hobbits travel through the Barrow-downs, a site that's home to a number of graves dating back to the world's First Age, and which is home to some spirits called Barrow-wights, which attack and capture them, only for them to be saved once again by Tom Bombadil, who destroys the wight. After freeing them, they take some blades, and continue onto their journey, which takes them to the town of Bree and the Prancing Pony, which is where the story once again converges with Jackson's adaptation.
Boyens, Jackson, and Walsh ultimately cut this segment of Tolkien's story for their film, with Jackson later explaining that meeting Tom Bombadil didn't really advance the story of Frodo carrying the Ring to Mordor. It's an omission that brought about a lot of criticism for the film trilogy as it was coming out, but it's a criticism that's long since been overshadowed – it does take a long time for the quest to really get started in the books, and Jackson's approach for the film really does make a lot of sense.
I got chills when Colbert revealed himself. While he's well known for his work as a comedian, for The Colbert Report, and as the host of The Late Show, he's also a huge fan of Tolkien's works: Jackson described him as having an encyclopedic knowledge of the world, something that he's showcased throughout his shows and as moderator for big panels and the like. He also appeared in Jackson's films: as "Laketown Spy" in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Back in July, Colbert announced that Paramount was cancelling The Late Show, a role that he'd held since September 2015. With the show coming to an end at the end of May, Jackson noted that he now had time to work on this new project.
Following Jackson's video, the studio released a synopsis:
“Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began."
This is pretty interesting: it's not a "let's film these lost chapters" situation, but potentially an interesting way to frame this particular episode.
In the novels, Frodo and Sam bring the Ring to Mount Doom and it's destroyed (Today, March 25th!). From there, the Hobbits recover over the course of the summer and return home to the Shire in October/November, and the events of "The Scouring of the Shire" take place. (Another unrealized – and I'd argue more consequential – episode from the Jackson adaptation.)
Two years later to the day, the Third Age comes to an end: Sam's daughter Elenor is born, and later that year, Frodo departs from Middle-earth for the Grey Havens, leaving behind Sam, Merry, and Pippin.
From the looks of it, this film is going to be doing what The War of Rohirrim, The Rings of Power, and The Hunt for Gollum have been doing: drawing on the appendixes from The Lord of the Rings to build out the story and world a bit more.
Appendix B provides some extensive timelines of the world and what comes after the War of the Ring: 14 years would line up around the year 1436 in that timeline, in which Tolkien provided:
"King Elessar [Aragorn] rides north and dwells for a while by Lake Evendim. He comes to the Brandywine Bridge, and there greets his friends. He gives the Star of the Dúnedain to Master Samewise, and Elanor is is made a maid of honour to Queen Arwen."
In the years immediately prior, Merry had become "Master of Buckland," Perry is named Thain – a sort of master-at-arms for the Shire, and Sam is elected mayor of Hobbiton.
This particular adventure featured in this film doesn't appear in the Appendixes, but it does feel like it could fit with where the characters have ended up: the trio adjusting to this new world and their roles in it, while setting off to relive the glory days of their adventure, with Elanor learning about it this particular lost episode of the tale as they do so.
With The Hunt for Gollum (potentially) bringing back Wood and McKellen to reprise their roles, this seems like an ideal way to bring Sean Astin (Sam), Dominic Monaghan (Merry), and Billy Boyd (Pippin) to come back in a way that makes sense for a sequel film a quarter century after the original films, and I could see them taking advantage of the de-aging advances that's been utilized to varying success in the last decade. If they go this route, I can see Wood taking part (he has been coy about what his involvement will be with Serkis's film, but has said that he'd like to return to the role if able).
While Tom Bombadil was skipped over in Jackson's films, Amazon did include him in the second season of The Rings of Power, where he's played by actor Rory Kinnear. Should he be part of this project, it'll be an interesting opportunity to try and tackle the character and to insert some additional nuance or complexity to Jackson's films.
This is all a fine line to walk: legacy sequels and endless franchises are what audiences really do seem to want, even if people complain up and down about the lack of originality in Hollywood. Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy set an impossibly high bar, and his Hobbit trilogy, Amazon's Rings of Power, and The War of the Rohirrim haven't come close to it in vision or quality. I'd also worry about the sort of wide-eyed, fannish "what if this happens??" story conception that ultimately doesn't advance the story other than bring back fan-favorite characters in an endless string of derivative scenarios. (See my issues with The Book of Boba Fett.)
That said, I was encouraged by Serkis's involvement in The Hunt for Gollum – if there's anyone who understands the character and story, it's him – and Colbert penning Shadow of the Past strikes me as a positive sign: there's nothing superficial about his love of this world. But I do worry that there isn't quite the overarching vision for the future of this franchise is beyond stripping Tolkien down to the bone for these types of projects.
But ultimately we'll have to see how these two films turn out. I don't think that I'll hold out for something hitting the level of the originals, but I do hope that they'll slot in nicely alongside them.