Life after late: Stephen Colbert to write new ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie
Stephen Colbert has already landed his next gig following his exit from The Late Show this May. He will write a new Lord of the Rings film, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
Peter Jackson, the filmmaker behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy, shared the news via social media on March 24th.
As per Deadline, the film has been given the tentative title, The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, and will be penned by Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee, as well as the talk-show host.
The film will depict the events 14 years after the passing of Frodo; it will follow Sam, Merry, and Pippin as they set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure.
Additionally, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, will become a central character after discovering “a long-buried secret that explains why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began”.
This idea was directly inspired by chapters three to eight in The Fellowship of the Ring book, which were not included in Jackson’s film adaptation.
“You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me, but the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in the Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Colbert told Jackson.
He went on, “I thought, 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?”
It then took Colbert two years to “scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did,” the star beamed.
This isn’t the first time Colbert will be involved in the sci-fi world; he had a small cameo in Jackson’s 2013 film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, alongside his wife and children.
Another addition to J. R. R. Tolkien’s world is also coming to the big screen. The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is set to be released on December 17th, will be directed by Andy Serkis and will star Kate Winslet.
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