Warner Bros wants to make Lord of the Rings films. Not remakes, fyi.

darjr

I crit!
Updated to link to the original story this is from.

And Warner Bros. film bosses Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy signaled that they are not interested in a retread of what lackson has already done, saying in their own statement: Twenty years ago, New Line took an unprecedented leap of faith to realize the incredible stories, characters and world of The Lord of the Rings on the big screen. The result was a landmark series of films that have been embraced by generations of fans. But for all the scope and detail lovingly packed into the two trilogies, the vast, complex and dazzling universe dreamed up by J.R.R. Tolkien remains largely unexplored on film. The opportunity to invite fans deeper into the cinematic world of Middle-earth is an honor, and we are excited to partner with Middle-earth Enterprises and Embracer on this adventure.
 
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aco175

Legend
if they are not remakes, I'm not sure what they are going to make. Maybe the Hobbit can just follow the books and not be 3 movies long, but that is where the profits lay.
 

They would need to renegotiate to get the FULL rights to make the stuff that would make the tolkienlogiest happy. Even then it would be doubtful
 

MarkB

Legend
if they are not remakes, I'm not sure what they are going to make.
Probably expansions on history and backstories and whatever else they can find to try and flesh out.

A Hobbit prequel telling the story of the Lonely Mountain and Laketown as Smaug invaded.

Aragorn: The Ranger Years.

Back There Again - bringing back Martin Freeman as Bilbo for another adventure set between The Hobbit and when he met Frodo.
 

LotRCU on the way is what this translates to.

They could obviously just start making up a whole bunch of stories, much as Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War did. Btw I will die on the hill of those being actually not-terrible in terms of Tolkienian inspiration and more in line with the morality of the books than the vast majority of Tolkien tie-ins, including virtually all the videogames.

Indeed that's what I expect them to do. Honestly it could be fine. Or terrible. Depending entirely on what they do. I'd kind of love to see someone fighting a guerrilla war in the Southlands against whatever Sauron-controlled leadership they have there (a plotline a Shadow of War expansion had I think), for example.

They would need to renegotiate to get the FULL rights to make the stuff that would make the tolkienlogiest happy.
Why care about Tolkienologists? I say that as someone at least Tolkienologist-adjacent. There are like, dozens of us, worldwide, and we're not the kind of people who can convince a bunch of people to watch your movie/show, or even convince them not to if it sucks.
 

Jer

Legend
Supporter
if they are not remakes, I'm not sure what they are going to make. Maybe the Hobbit can just follow the books and not be 3 movies long, but that is where the profits lay.
Sequel and prequels. Lord of the Rings Expanded Universe. Follow the exploits of King Aragorn in the Fourth Age. Witness the rise of yet another threat to the people of Middle Earth. Thrill as the wastrel grandson of Aragorn is forced to confront his legacy as he is tempted down the path of the Dark Side by Darth Krayt.

You know, the usual stuff.
 


I mean, it will almost certainly be garbage. Garbage with very nice production design if they use Jackson's people, but garbage nonetheless.

While I don't want to further amplify the awe that the "big worldbuilding fantasy" authors, and Tolkien in particular, are held in, I think fundamentally once a vast, intricate fantasy world is built around someone's singular vision (which even they struggle to keep straight), to make good fiction in that world you either need that person at least in consultation or else you need to do everything with painstaking care. There are just too many moving pieces with obtuse purposes for some other author or screenwriting to come in and bang out something on a deadline without the worldbuilder's supervision.

I don't think it would be hopeless to make a good, single three hour-ish Middle Earth movie not based on any established Tolkien narrative. But the process has to start with a screenwriter taking their long sweet time. The problem is that, since Lord of the Rings is the famous Trilogy, and the ultra big budget side of Hollywood thinks only in cinematic universes now, the idea of a single movie doesn't even occur to them. I has to be more trilogies. And at that point the scale is too large for anyone to take the necessary time to do it right, and to make actual sense of the world they are writing in. This is the problem with a Middle Earth television series as well. And even if they have an actual Tolkien story at the core their going to stretch it into a trilogy like they did The Hobbit, and fill it with crap.

Once again, I'm not trying to build the mythology of "Tolkien the visionary author" any further than it's already been built. But the slow work of decades for the Oxford professor is not a reasonable thing for a team of screenwriters on a deadline with a "make another trilogy" mandate to try to replicate.

Also much of the appeal of Tolkien's work is in how personal it was to a singular eccentric author (which is part of why that author is himself such a focus of obsession for some people). I mean, I'm not a Tom Bombadil fan, but the fact that the work is full of such things that meant something to the author but not necessarily much to most readers, and serve little obvious narrative function, but perhaps serve some other function, is part of the charm.
 



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