In the wake of the announcement earlier today about Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema’s intention to return to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth on the big screen, plenty of questions have been raised.
As we know, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they have closed a multi-year deal with Swedish gaming company Embracer Group who previously acquired the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” in terms of film, games, merchandise, theme parks and live productions.
We also know current Warners chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy aren’t looking to remake filmmaker Peter Jackson’s iconic trilogy from 2001-2003, only that they intend to go “deeper into the cinematic world of Middle-earth” and touch upon the parts of Tolkien’s world “largely unexplored on film”.
How that will work exactly isn’t clear, but among those open to being involved are the original New Zealand architects of the ‘Rings’ and “Hobbit” trilogies themselves – Peter Jackson and his writing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. In a joint statement to Deadline they say:
“Warner Brothers and Embracer have kept us in the loop every step of the way. We look forward to speaking with them further to hear their vision for the franchise moving forward.”
The trio sound open to being involved with these projects and Warners seems to be keen to get them involved. It marks a sharp difference to the Amazon Studios series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” which the trio had no involvement in.
Jackson previously told THR that Amazon initially wanted them onboard, but when Jackson and Walsh requested to see some scripts they never heard back.
As the announcement was only made a few hours ago, it’ll likely be a while before we hear anything further on the new films.
