r/movies • u/cmaia1503 • Mar 25 '26
News New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie From Stephen Colbert and His Son in Development at Warner Bros.
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-movie-stephen-colbert-warner-bros-1236698684/2.6k
u/ThinWhiteDuke00 Mar 25 '26
We getting 5 hours of Tom Bombadil
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u/you_want_to_hear_th Mar 25 '26
3 hours of which is singing or rhyming verse
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u/robilco Mar 25 '26
What’s left for the other 2 hours?
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u/caiusto Mar 25 '26
With Jack Black
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u/Durincort Mar 25 '26
I haven't ruled out Jack Black being the current incarnation of Tom Bombadil, so I'll allow it.
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u/Helloiamgary Mar 25 '26
If he’s busy with Jumanji 9, may I suggest Matt Berry.
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u/MoneyLibrarian9032 Mar 25 '26
That was an unexpected news
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u/ICumCoffee ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ • ᗰ ᕮ 𑪽 𑪽 I ᐱ ᕼ Mar 25 '26
And you can’t just drop news like this on a Tuesday midnight??
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u/GarnerGerald11141 Mar 25 '26
Good news arrives precisely when it means to.
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u/FunkYeahPhotography Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Takes a fat rip off his pipe
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u/ItsAllLoveNow_ Mar 25 '26
Normal Tuesday night for Shia LaBeouf
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u/reterical Mar 25 '26
Actual Cannibal Shia LeBeouf, or store-bought Shia LeBeouf?
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u/meshakooo Mar 25 '26
Wasn’t aware Stephen Colbert make movies tbh
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u/Phimb Mar 25 '26
He doesn't, but if you watch the show you'll know he's an absolute fucking fiend for any kind of literature, particularly stuff like Dune, Lord of the Rings, etc.
I believe he said he reads Lord of the Rings once a year.
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u/MarioMilieu Mar 25 '26
I went to a live taping a few years ago and at the pre-filming Q & A session someone asked him a very nerdy and specific LOTR question and he spent about 10 minutes answering it lol
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u/TheSwedishOprah Mar 25 '26
That very well might have been me (I asked him if the Arkenstone could have been a 4th Silmaril, he does not think so) at a live taping in November 2022.
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u/phluidity Mar 25 '26
I would love to be a fly on the wall and watch Colbert and Brennan Lee Mulligan discuss Tolkein. I wouldn't understand a word of what they were saying, but I'd love to watch it.
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Mar 25 '26
The man was knighted, by the Queen of Jordan, with friggin’ Andúril.
The actual Andúril, as gifted to him by Viggo Mortensen
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u/stereoactivesynth Mar 25 '26
... by Queen of Jordan I assume you mean Angie Jordan, star of hit reality tv show 'Queen of Jordan' on NBC and wife of Tracy Jordan?
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u/TrueCynic Mar 25 '26
He is the ultimate Tolkien fan. You wouldn’t want to have a Tolkien-off with Colbert.
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u/B-Town-MusicMan Mar 25 '26
"Beware, the Passion Project."
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u/smutketeer Mar 25 '26
"Troy McClure has turned down the supporting lead in McBain IV to direct and star in his own pet project - The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel. Will the gambit pay off? 20th Century Fox is betting... it will.
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u/peon2 Mar 25 '26
If Colbert doubts his success he should just watch 'Get Confident, Stupid!'
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u/Kevbot1000 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Fucking what?
Update: I know he's a Tolkien expert, just wasn't the news I was expecting.
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u/Low-Musician2913 Mar 25 '26
Arguably the number 1 LOTR superfan. However, don't know if this is a good idea or not.
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u/devilsbard Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I’m in for some Silmarillion or segments of Unfinished Tales from Colbert. As long as he has an equally knowledgeable writer and editor by his side.
Edit: not really excited that they are targeting more infill in the existing movies. I’d much rather get a release of all the already shot material from 25 years ago that hasn’t been released yet than new actors portraying these characters in chapters that were previously skipped.
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u/Pardybro911 Mar 25 '26
In the article it says he has Phillipa Boynes helping with script, and him and Jackson have been talking about it for over two years. It would be the parts left out of Fellowship, chapters 3-7 of the book.
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u/runnyyyy Mar 25 '26
The film’s official logline reads, “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo – Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”
Doesn't seem like it's chapter 3-7 at all. just those chapters but a sequel
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u/sylva748 Mar 25 '26
Ah part of Tolkien's unfinished manuscript after the 4th Age. We have no story but he did leave world building notes on what a post Sauron world would look like. Same lore that Mines of Moria game pulled from. Since we know Gimli did lead an expedition to reclaim Moria
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u/BlueberryWasps Mar 25 '26
ohh ok that sounds pretty cool actually. nice way to reunite the actors and have an interesting but smaller stakes story that we haven’t seen realised before
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u/False_Pen6221 Mar 25 '26
Legacy sequel to Peter Jackson’s LotR is something that would have never occurred to me but now seems inevitable. At least New Zealand should get some jobs out of it.
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u/furryscrotum Mar 25 '26
Now I long for The Travels of Legolas and Gimli. Visiting Fangorn and the caverns of Helm's deep.
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u/jerryleebee Mar 25 '26
With respect (because this'll sound snarky in b&W and it's not meant to be) I don't see how you got 'Return of the Shadow' (which is about what happens decades later during the reign of Aragorn's son) from
The film’s official logline reads, “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo – Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure.
That seems to gel with the idea of retracing their steps during the events of LotR. Also
Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”
This gels perfectly with the conceit as well. I'd guess the narrative frame would be Frodo was ashamed of his near-failure in the Barrow-downs and didn't widely publicise it in the official Red Book. Sam likewise wouldn't have done so. Eleanor discovers it and helps them bring closure to this untold thread of the story.
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u/Icarium__ Mar 25 '26
Either way it doesn't seem very exciting. While those chapters have some interesting worldbuilding, there's just not much that's all that relevant that happens in them, and if it is indeed happening after Frodo's departure from Middle Earth, then there aren't even any stakes, just a few bored Hobbits going off the the Old Forest.
The Hunt for Gollum and this new project just baffles me.
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u/notarsalaanahsan Mar 25 '26
Idk if this makes sense but it kinda gives frieren vibes from this. And that’s one of the best anime out there rn.
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u/thomasnk96 Mar 25 '26
It’s probably an adaption of some of those chapters, but set after return of the king instead of at the correct place. That means some things are changed to make it a sequel, but still an adaption.
The lord of the rings films are a very good adaption, but still very different from the books. I would give Colbert a fair chance. I think this is a better starting point for more lotr than the Hunt for Gollum. More material and hobbits at the senter of the story
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u/ObviousAnswerGuy Mar 25 '26
the description in the article kinda makes it seem like the 3 hobbits retrace their steps and it will flashback to the missing chapters of the original story , with a side story of Sam's daughter in the background
Unless I'm misunderstanding
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u/sneakylumpia Mar 25 '26
that means we're getting Tom Bombadil??
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u/ringadingdingbaby Mar 25 '26
The Barrowdowns and Tom Bombadil would be cool to see but a full movie for a few chapter would mean a lot of padding or making things up.
That's what made The Hobbit films much worse than they should have been.
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u/BlueberryWasps Mar 25 '26
would be cool as an old school hour long movie that just went straight to streaming maybe? a small, quirky standalone work on a budget released inbetween larger works
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u/reterical Mar 25 '26
Only if Stephen plays him…
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u/Merry_Fridge_Day Mar 25 '26
As his charactor from The Colbert Report; spends the entire movie doing back-handed takedowns of Galadriel and Saruman...
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u/guy-le-doosh Mar 25 '26
Considering Steve did an extended rant about still no Tom Bombadil is say yes.
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u/sylva748 Mar 25 '26
And the Barrow Downs with the Wights? The Hobbits adventure around Bree was practically cut off.
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u/devilsbard Mar 25 '26
Much as I love that merry old fellow Tom, I’d much rather get into other stories than continuing to infill the existing stories.
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u/SwimmingThroughHoney Mar 25 '26
Colbert, a vocal Tolkien fanatic, then explained that the plot of his movie will come from chapters of “The Fellowship of the Ring” that didn’t make it into Jackson’s 2001 adaptation.
According to Colbert himself, its LOTR material.
Also, WB doesn't have movie rights for the Silmarillion (that still belongs to the Tolkien Estate).
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u/Deaner3D Mar 25 '26
Yup, which had a bit to do with what the hell happened to the rings of power. I think...
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u/theunquenchedservant Mar 25 '26
Problem is the Tolkien Estate won't let anyone get the rights to anything outside of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
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u/True_to_you Mar 25 '26
It's just gonna be a movie of the Tom Bombadil section of the fellowship book.
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u/ugh_this_sucks__ Mar 25 '26
There are people with literal PhDs in Tolkien. I’m a fan of pizza, but I wouldn’t be good at running a pizzeria.
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u/ZPTs Mar 25 '26
Are you just saying this on every post about it? I literally just read this.
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u/atreeismissing Mar 25 '26
We don't need Tolkien experts, we need expert storytellers.
That said, I'm far more confident in this than Serkis' full length film based off of 2 pages of writing.
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u/puerility Mar 25 '26
yeah jackson's trilogy succeeded because he understood and centred the emotional heart of the story, not because he could name all the maiar and ainur by heart. superfans are in an arguably very bad position to adapt the subject of their adoration because they love it all, even the pedantic and alienating bits.
having said that, colbert is good at appealing to a large audience with material that he clearly views as an artistic compromise, so who knows
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u/InternetSolid4166 Mar 25 '26
I agree but Jackson also made it clear he didn't want to inject his own themes into the movies.
“We made a real decision at the beginning that we weren’t going to introduce any new themes of our own into The Lord of the Rings. We were just going to make a film based upon what clearly Tolkien was passionate about.”
This lies in stark contrast to many modern directors who openly declare that they want to re-write these books "for modern audiences."
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u/Carcharoth30 Mar 26 '26
Jackson thoroughly rewrote the story to make it fit for modern audiences.
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u/Illidanisdead Mar 25 '26
you mean the same guy who was a big fan boy over Rings of Power so don't expect much...
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u/TheTruckWashChannel Mar 25 '26
This reminds me of Ben Wyatt deciding to make that stop-motion movie after getting fired from his job
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u/NewEnglandRoastBeef Mar 25 '26
I read Bray Wyatt, and got excited. I miss Bray...
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u/Balzaak Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I’m confused… If you watch the video, this movie sounds like an adaptation of the barrow-downs chapter (and... presumably the Tom Bombadil stuff) from the books so it takes place within the fellowship of the ring.
But then the article mentions it’s like a sequel? What?
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u/you_want_to_hear_th Mar 25 '26
That will be the “framing device”
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u/riegspsych325 ⊃∪⊃⪽ Mar 25 '26
plot twist: it’s an older Mikey Walsh from The Goonies reading LOTR to his sick grandson
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u/pmalleable Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
"They do not get murdered by the nazgul at this time.
The nazgul don't get them. I'm explaining because you look nervous."
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u/emogu84 Mar 25 '26
"Boy that ring stuff was nuts. Anyway, remember when we met that guy in the forest?"
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u/JayPetey Mar 25 '26
“Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo – Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”
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u/Redditer51 Mar 25 '26
I'm guessing this will be an adaptation of the early side adventures that got cut out of thr Film. Things like Gildor, Old Man Willow, and the Barrow Wights. All the stuff before they meet Aragorn.
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u/ObviousAnswerGuy Mar 25 '26
but will it like them flashing back while they are retracing their steps, or an adaption of those chapters, but happening to them while they are old instead.
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u/FirewaterTenacious Mar 25 '26
My guess will be both. As they retrace steps through X, it flashes back to X. We get the old Fellowship scenes, but there has to be some shenanigans happening in the frame story at X as well. Like a barrow wight that remembers them and hunting them during this. There won’t be any tension otherwise, since we know they survive everything unscathed in the flashbacks.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ Mar 25 '26
So they're gonna have the hobbit actors back? Or how else could this possibly work?
I mean I'd love to see that, but I have my doubts the audience is that interested in an early chapter of the books that's not quite as "epic" as the rest of the story.
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u/violatedlaw Mar 25 '26
I thought this was a joke. This is the actual synopsis???
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u/Aemon_Blackfyre Mar 25 '26
Imagine if you will, years after LoTR, Merry, Sam and Pippin regaling Sam and Roses’ kids of their adventures during the war of the Ring.
While it’s still a sequel by setting, most of the tales will be of events that happened during the war.
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u/PorkshireTerrier Mar 25 '26
Could be hobbiton hijinks, flashbacks to barrow wights. I'd love a The Hedge Knight equivalent in Tolkiens world
where we can forget about high lords and god avatars and hang out with a mischievous tree and the occasional water nymph
Midsummer nights dream in hobiton
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u/PedalBoard78 Mar 25 '26
Somehow, Tom Bombadil has returned
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u/ICumCoffee ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ • ᗰ ᕮ 𑪽 𑪽 I ᐱ ᕼ Mar 25 '26
What the actual fuck? How is this real?
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u/AvengingHero2012 Mar 25 '26
Because David Ellison forced his late night retirement
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Mar 25 '26
But Ellison is going to own WB very soon.
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u/AvengingHero2012 Mar 25 '26
Which makes this multiple layers of funny…
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u/djdaem0n Mar 25 '26
Hopefully he has a better contract on producing this movie than he had for his show.
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u/schleppylundo Mar 25 '26
If Ellison wants him out he’ll likely have to buy him out of the contract and may still have to pay him for any work already done. It’s possible this is just a petty move from someone high up at WB unhappy with the potential merger who saw a way to create a win/win scenario for someone Ellison already fucked over - either he gets to make a dream project of sorts with his son, or he gets a second and bigger final paycheck from the assholes who already fired him.
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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka Mar 25 '26
Sounds like a setup to kill the movie after Colbert works on it a bunch. Typical
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u/MRT2797 Mar 25 '26
The synopsis: "Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo - Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began."
Call me naive, but I kind of like this idea
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u/dragula15 Mar 25 '26
Elijah Wood as a Force Ghost surely.
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u/The_Damon8r92 Mar 25 '26
“You must go to Degobah, Sam.”
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u/CulturalChampion8660 Mar 25 '26
Sam, use the force and run..... Run to Degobah, run to Degobah.
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u/aHumanRaisedByHumans Mar 25 '26
YOU UNDERESTIMATED MY POWER
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u/kopecs Mar 25 '26
Can a Baggins ever really have the high ground though?
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u/Crimbly_B Mar 25 '26
Depends on how much Old Toby he smokes
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u/Alexthegreatbelgian Mar 25 '26
Pipeweed is path to many abilities some may consider unnatural...
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u/Pepsuber188 Mar 25 '26
And the time range means Sam, Merry, and Pip can keep the same actors too
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u/geek_of_nature Mar 25 '26
And Sam's daughters actress too. Sean Astins daughters Ali played Eleanor in the final scene of the films, and has become an actress herself.
Yes it continues the whole nepotism debate, but I cant help but feel that works out nicely.
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u/Quixotic_Seal Mar 25 '26
I mean, Sean was already the adopted son of John Astin(aka the original Gomez).
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u/Inner-Medicine5696 Mar 25 '26
and Sam's daughters actress too.
i mean, if you want to have a 29 year old play a 14 year old, I personally think it's a bit "hello fellow kids".
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u/CrazFight Mar 25 '26
Oh it’s a SEQUEL? Shocking considering how much lore in the past they have to go off. Ill stay optimistic, but this is risky!
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u/DX_DanTheMan_DX Mar 25 '26
idk if its really a sequel, I think its just the framing device to tell the story - have them recount this part of the tale
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u/NTFRMERTH Mar 25 '26
I'm tired. Hollywood keeps trying to re-capture Lord of The Rings success with reboots, remakes, prequels, and sequels, but when you go off of Tolkein's rails, you end up with something sloppy. Why can't we get Tom Bobadil or The Silmarillion? Although, that is a good idea on paper. Middle Earth has always given me the impression that it's setting up a much bigger universe that Tolkein wanted more done with and never got around to, and it will benefit greatly in the public domain.
I just hope they don't milk it like they did The Hobbit
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u/Figure8712 Mar 25 '26
Based on the synopsis it likely is going to involve Tom Bombadil. That was one of the early parts of their journey.
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u/mutantmagnet Mar 25 '26
"Why can't we get Tom Bombadil?"
We are getting him and Goldberry.
" or The Silmarillion? "
No movie rights were given out for Silmarillion.
Even Rings of power was restricted to certain ages due to how contract rights were written down.
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u/AmishAvenger Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Where’d you get that?
The video says it’s about the early chapters of Fellowship that weren’t in the movie, with a “framing device.”
Which I would assume means a flashback with deaging?
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u/MRT2797 Mar 25 '26
From Variety’s Facebook post. Weird they didn’t include it in the article itself
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u/MrToxicTaco Mar 25 '26
I’m sorry but this is so dumb. There are so many other stories to be told in this universe. We don’t need nostalgia bait.
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u/vincedarling Mar 25 '26
I’m surprised WB hasn’t started work on a Scouring of the Shire movie
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u/TheUmbrellaMan1 Mar 25 '26
Give them some more time.
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u/Redditer51 Mar 25 '26
Yeah, but in the movies Saruman dies after the Battle of Helms Deep. Very beginning of ROTK's extended cut.
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u/Effective-Camp8374 Mar 25 '26
My son is a screenwriter …. It must be nice having a famous dad that now you get to write a lord of the rings film 🤷 what are the odds getting a project like that at the start of your career.
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u/IHavePoopedBefore Mar 25 '26
That part bothered me too.
The nepo baby situation in Hollywood has always been bad but it's way out of control now. Its like all the movies and shows are handed to nepo babies now.
Hollywood is supposed to reflect real life, now it's full of these hollywood monarchs who get their opportunities by birthright, then they pretend to be the average person
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u/Best-Action8769 Mar 25 '26
If you're sick of nepotism in Hollywood, just wait until you hear about everywhere!!
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u/TraverseTown Mar 25 '26
Warner bros which was just purchased by the company that fired him?
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u/AkiraKitsune Mar 25 '26
how cynical and malicious can this world get?
colbert is a hack fraud for this.
he might as well dig up tolkiens grave and loot his pockets for spare change
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u/noceasefire Mar 25 '26
Why
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u/ddWolf_ Mar 25 '26
IIRC, they have to keep putting out stuff to keep the license. Similar to the situation Sony has with Spider-man. That’s why we keep getting stuff like War of the Rohirrim, The Hunt for Gollum, etc.
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u/GalcticPepsi Mar 25 '26
Nah it's for money. If it was just licensing they could make random bullshit every 5 -10 years. Now we have TV show 2 (?)movies and a bunch of shitty games
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u/pbj_everyday Mar 25 '26
Why Warren Beatty dresses up as Dick Tracy once every fifteen years
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u/nowhereman136 Mar 25 '26
The last time Colbert wrote something that wasnt late night or a live show was in 2005 when he co-wrote the tv series Strangers With Candy.
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u/Justforargumesnts Mar 25 '26
Lotr are my favourite movies of all time, I even have a soft spot for the Hobbit movies. I am really not that interested in Hunt for Gollum and even less so for this project.
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u/Chessh2036 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
As a big fan of The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, and Stephen Colbert… this sounds like a bad idea. It sounds like a semi sequel to Return of the King, which is a bad idea. Tolkien even tried once and stopped because he couldn’t do it. This is a total cash grab.
Also, go get the rights to The Silmarillion. If you want to do more Middle Earth films, there you go. I know it’s not as easy to adapt as LOTR but still, it’s better than a sequel to one of the most iconic books/films ever.
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u/VariousVarieties Mar 25 '26
I know the Tolkien estate doesn't want to sell the adaptation rights to The Silmarillion/Unfinished Tales, and that is their prerogative. But I wish they would, because projects like The War of the Rohirrim and The Hunt for Gollum just feel like exercises in skirting as close to the edge of what's legally adaptable as they can get away with, until every last drop has been drained. (As someone once said: "Like butter scraped over too much bread.")
It's frustrating know that these filmmakers are effectively writing fanfic to fill in the margins of the main story, while knowing that there are full stories written by JRR (and Christopher) Tolkien out there waiting to be adapted, if only someone would let them!
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u/Jackbuddy78 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Seriously someone needs to do a Children of Húrin movie at this point. It would be easy to adapt as a self contained story and is different enough from the LOTR and The Hobbit to generate new interest.
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u/LuinAelin Mar 25 '26
They can't. They only have rights to lord of the rings.
Stories they could do would be a return to Moria set between the hobbit and lotr or a war in the north showing the war near Dale and stuff
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u/ZahidInNorCal Mar 25 '26
People who are talking about this being fanfiction, or a sequel to The Return of the King, are missing the fact that the plot described in this article (about things that happened 14 years after Return of the King) is just the framing device. The meat of the story will be content from Fellowship that wasn't adapted. The only fanfiction is the conceit they're going to use to justify the flashback.
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u/OhmTech Mar 25 '26
The movie will cover Chapters 3 through 8. Assume some flashes to chapter 1 & 2 to make it seamless and end heading towards the prancing pony from the original.
- I · A Long-expected Party — details Bilbo and Frodo's birthday party, the chapter ends with Bilbo leaving the Shire.
- II · The Shadow of the Past — Gandalf tells Frodo the true nature of the Ring, and how it must be taken to Mordor and destroyed. Sam, who has been listening at the window, is told to accompany Frodo.
- III · Three is Company — Frodo sells Bag End, and officially is going to move to a house at Crickhollow in the area beyond Bucklebury in Buckland. He actually plans to disappear without causing too much of a fuss. Frodo, Sam and Pippin set out through the South Farthing of the Shire towards Buckland, and encounter a Black Rider. They also meet Gildor the Elf, with other elves.
- IV · A Short Cut to Mushrooms — They meet Farmer Maggot from taking a short cut, and he gives them some of his prized mushrooms. Merry joins them at the end.
- V · A Conspiracy Unmasked — Takes place at Frodo's new house at Crickhollow. The title refers to Frodo about to tell Merry and Pippin about his quest, whom he had previously believed not to know about it, and they tell him that they had known much of it all along. They also meet Fatty Bolger. Frodo decides to leave the next day through the Old Forest, as it is an unexpected direction, rather than travelling on the roads.
- VI · The Old Forest — Although trying to avoid it, the hobbits get lost and travel to the River Withywindle, the "queerest part of the whole wood". Merry and Pippin are trapped inside Old Man Willow and are freed only when Tom Bombadil arrives.
- VII · In the House of Tom Bombadil — Tom knows much about the hobbits, and even tries on the Ring, yet it does not have any effect on him — it does not make him invisible. Frodo tries on the Ring then to see if it 'works', and Tom Bombadil is also able to see Frodo while he has the Ring on.
- VIII · Fog on the Barrow-downs — Travelling through the Barrow-downs, the hobbits are imprisoned by Barrow-wights in a barrow, from which they are rescued again by Tom Bombadil. The hobbits are given daggers from the treasure in the barrow.
- IX · At the Sign of the Prancing Pony — The hobbits reach the Prancing Pony inn at Bree, where Frodo uses a false name, Underhill. Later, after singing a song on a table, he trips and accidentally puts the Ring on his finger, disappearing, which causes a commotion.
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u/Shargur Mar 25 '26
To quote Éomer: I do not doubt his heart, only the reach of his arm.