The work of JRR Tolkien about the hobbits and The Lord of the Rings it is limited to the works that the writer created before his death in 1973. However, Hollywood knows that he has a gigantic vein in this universe, such as the cinematographic sagas of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as well as the series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power which premiered on Amazon Prime Video. And he will continue to exploit it.

It was confirmed Warner Bros. who announced that he was already working on the cinematic expansion of Tolkien’s universe with Kissing Group, the company that owns the commercial exploitation rights and the production company New line cinema responsible for The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

“20 years ago, New Line took an unprecedented leap of faith to bring the incredible stories, characters and world of The Lord of the Rings to the big screen. The result was a landmark series of films that have been embraced by generations. But for all the breadth and detail lovingly packed into both trilogies, the vast, complex, and dazzling universe imagined by JRR Tolkien remains largely unexplored in film. More in the cinematic world of Middle-earth is an honor “, they said in a statement. Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy Warner executives after signing the deal with Embracer.

And where can the TLOR universe go? The official response is that “Embracer is already working on finding other opportunities which include exploring additional films based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s literary works.” The unofficial answer is a bit more complex.

Because the rights to JRR Tolkien’s literary works belong to the State of Tolkien, while the Second Age (LOTR) exploitation rights now belong to the Embracer group after purchasing them from Middle-earth companies that acquired them before the cinema boom. Now after the success the price has gone up and that’s why Prime Video had so much trouble telling what happened with the rings of power since most of the events were told in The Silmarillion a work that was outside these rights.

The Rohirrim War

The most immediate thing in the TLOR universe to hit theaters is War of the Rohirrim. New Line Cinema will make this prequel to Peter Jackson’s trilogy which will be set around 250 years before the events we saw in The Fellowship of the Ring, it will take us to the dark Helm’s Deep (the place where we live l one of the most epic battles in movie history, courtesy of The Two Towers) and its protagonist will then be the king of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand.

Those responsible for preparing the script will be Jeffrey Addis and Will Matthews, two fantastic film veterans known for writing Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance for Netflix, while the project director will be Kenji Kamiyama, an icon of Japanese anime, director of several Ghost in the Shell films and ideologue of the film still in production Blade Runner: Black Lotus.

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