Last week came the news directly from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav on an investor call that Warners Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema had made a multiyear deal with rights holders Embracer Group to make several new “The Lord of the Rings” movies.
The news came to help soften the blow of the studio reporting a $2.1 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2022. It was an unexpected announcement, but also unsurprising as Zaslav is determined to get the studio back to its franchise filmmaking heyday of the 2000s when ‘Rings,’ “Harry Potter” and Batman were big money-spinners.
A new feature over at THR indicates there are no scripts yet for these new ‘Rings’ films but one insider suggests the plan is to turn “The Lord of the Rings” into a ‘Star Wars-like franchise’. The whole deal has been sparked by Embracer taking over Middle-earth Enterprises from the Saul Zaentz Company last fall and settling a lawsuit over the rights.
A key to the new films will be getting director Peter Jackson and writing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens onboard after “The Rings of Power” series producers Amazon fumbled its courtship of the team who ultimately had no involvement in the TV series. The trio are reportedly at least engaging with Warners/New Line for now.
Behind the scenes, Warners chiefs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca have reportedly “been striving to keep Amazon from blurring the lines too much between its LOTR franchises and the TV series”.
The move has raised the question of whether there’s enough interest in the property to keep moving foward. Whilst the ‘Rings’ trilogy remains a hallmark of cinema, “The Hobbit” trilogy wasn’t so well received and the very costly “The Rings of Power” series wasn’t quite the slam dunk Amazon probably hoped it would be.
Amazon says “Rings of Power” was the streamer’s all-time most-watched series, drove plenty of Prime Video sign-ups, and was seen in part by at least 100 million people. Yet months on, the show is still struggling for fandom acceptance. Reviews, though good, were decidedly soft.
Amazon has made a commitment to five seasons of “Rings of Power” with a second one now shooting, but that tepid response to the first season has people wondering whether it will fulfil that five-season plan – public perception needs to improve in order to do so – or could it go the way of Warners’ “Fantastic Beasts” franchise.
The company’s streaming chief Jennifer Salke claims they’re not worried about the competition as she tells Variety this week: “We love our original series. We’re extremely proud of it and invested long-term. So, we definitely think there’s enough fan love to sustain ours for a long time.”
Rights issues meanwhile means at least both won’t crossover as they can only cover different periods of Middle Earth – Amazon’s is about the lesser known Second Age whilst Warners is about the quite familiar Third Age.
