By Sean Gallagher

Ever since the film rights to The Lord of the Rings were purchased last year by Embracer Group, fans have been wondering what’s to happen with the film side of things. Amazon currently has television rights for anything in the original trilogy of novels, which they brought to life in their mega-budget series The Rings of Power. The films have been housed at Warner Bros, who distributed The Hobbit films and the upcoming War of the Rohrimim anime film, due in 2024. Now, Warner and Embracer have struck a deal to keep Tolkien’s work alive on the big screen in collaboration with New Line Cinema. I have my concerns, but I also see the potential for excitement. Let’s dig in.

The Concern

The biggest concern with this is a flood of generic content simply to keep the license at Warner Bros. Whether you’re a fan or not, the reason why Amazon’s Rings of Power show is set in the Second Age is that the showrunners thought the idea of doing character origin stories for the likes of Gimli and Aragorn was a lazy and creatively lacking decision and that there was a bevy of potential to adapt the Second Age instead. Co-showrunner J.D. Payne stated:

“Amazon bought the rights to the trilogy, the appendices, and The Hobbit. They said the field was wide open – any story within that material, you could tell. So you had people pitching the Young Aragon show, or the Gimli spinoff, or other kinds of things.”

We could very well be getting movies like this down the line. It would use the allure of brand familiarity and perhaps even using the same cast to get casuals back into the movie theater. “The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn” will appeal to a general audience more than “The Lord of the Rings: Angmar“. Personally, I think Amazon was in the right to stay clear of this mentality. Those kinds of movies risk turning The Lord of the Rings brand into something akin to the Solo spin-off film, which while being a fun movie, is also kind of disposable and lacking substance. This would greatly take away from the mystique of the characters and would ultimately end up feeling a bit more generic I think. Considering that Warner Bros’ house is basically on fire, I would definitely not be surprised to see the studio go for “quick and easy” as opposed to creative and bold.

The biggest concern, of course, is to simply remake The Lord of the Rings. As we know, Peter Jackson’s films were not one-to-one adaptations of Tolkien’s works, so redoing the movies to be more faithful to the books could be an option. But the movies are so beloved, why try to top movies that many consider being near-perfect?

The Potential

That said, there’s a slew of history in Tolkien’s Legendarium. He wrote thousands of years of history for Middle-earth and there’s a ton of events that could be adapted, much like the War of the Rohirmim movie and considering that movie is already being made, it does give me hope that these major events that happened within the canon could be realized over doing “Young Aragorn”. While the Second Age is currently being adapted at Amazon, effectively axing that whole part of the canon from being adapted (for now), Embracer does have “matching rights” to The Silmarillion, so there’s a small chance that stories from the First Age could get made into movies (Beren and Luthien movie, anyone?). But there’s plenty that was mentioned in Tolkien’s prime works that could be adapted for the big screen that we only learned about briefly or in passing in his original works.

These include the likes of the War in the North, the war with the Witch-king at Angmar, or the Easterling’s invasion of Gondor, just to name a few. Considering Warner Bros. are already making a movie about the War of the Rhorimir and Helm Hammerhand, I am more optimistic about the expansion of the lore, rather than filling out characters’ backstories. Personally, I would love to see a trilogy about the rise and fall of Angmar, with the Witch-king as the primary antagonist. If they can somehow get their hands on The Silmarillion though, I think the potential could really be there as well, as the First Age is something that has remained elusive for decades when it comes to adaptations, but features some of the most epic events in Tolkien’s Legendarium. There’s the previously mentioned Beren and Luthien, but also The Fall of Gondolin with Glorfindel as a lead perhaps. I think if Warner taps into the mythology that Tolkien alluded to and create stories around these very major events, we could be onto something here that allows for stories to be fully realized that otherwise may have only gotten passing mentions in the books.

But what do you think? Is more Lord of the Rings movies something you’re excited about? If so, what would you like to see? Or are you worried, if so about what exactly? Let us know!

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