News: Steven Colbert + LOTR = Please Send the Asteroid Now.
Itâs been a hot minute since I last wrote about some new, woke Hollywood flop coming out to destroy our last remaining braincellsâŠlonger still since I wrote regarding any new Lord of the Rings adaptations. Most of that has been since Iâve been preoccupied with other things or just didnât care as much about some of the stuff coming out. However, it recently came to my attention that not only is Peter Jackson back to write a new LOTR movie, but he has hired none other than Steven Colbert to write it.
Steven ColbertâŠthe dude who singlehandedly nuked his own show. Thatâs the guy who Peter Jackson is trusting with a new Lord of the Rings adaptation.
Had this been several years ago, this already would not have boded well for the Lord of the Rings franchise because while Steven Colbert is a Tolkien superfan, that does not mean that he has the writing skills needed to a write a script that properly adapts Tolkienâs work. His skill in keeping his personal politics out of it would also be of major concern.
But add on the fact that weâre currently in 2026 and have already seen what hell Amazon wrought on Tolkienâs work with Rings of Power and already, die-hard Tolkien fans are skeptical of any attempt to adapt Tolkienâs work. Additionally, after the 2024 release of The War of the Rohirrim, which had Philipa Boyens, Fran Walsh, and Peter Jackson working on it, and we have even more right to be skeptical. Why? Because the entire movie was an animated bait-and-switch as instead of focusing on Helm Hammerhand, it focused on his daughter, who Tolkien deemed so unimportant that he didnât even give her a name.
From this, we can already see that this is going to be a perfect storm to possibly mess up Tolkienâs work more than Amazon did. But donât worry. This is only going to get worse since I havenât even told you about what the story is expected to be. Per Variety:
Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema confirmed that Colbert will co-write âThe Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Pastâ alongside screenwriter Philippa Boyens and Colbertâs son Peter McGee, with Jackson producing. The film, which draws from six chapters of âThe Fellowship of the Ringâ that Jackson never adapted, is set 14 years after the passing of Frodo, following Sam, Merry and Pippin as they retrace the first steps of their journey while Samâs daughter Elanor uncovers a secret that nearly cost them everything.
I think we all know who the real protagonist of the movie is going to be. Iâll give you a hint. It wonât be any of the guys.
Even worse for this movie is that fact that the story is going to be based off of five chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, particularly chapters 3-8. The issue with this, however, is that already, there have been parts of those chapters that were adapted into the original LOTR movies, though many of the events in the chapters were cut out for the sake of time. Thus, how they plan to properly adapt those scenes, Iâm not sure.
Additionally, how they plan to adapt characters such as Tom Bombadil is questionable, especially since weâve already seen what Amazon did to Tom. Are they going to keep him the jolly guy from the books or are they going to make him more serious? Either way, it doesnât work because while Colbert has said he wants to keep his adaptation accurate to the books, he also wants to keep it accurate to the movies. The movies, however, didnât really have room for longer moments of humor. They kept a very serious tone throughout, so a book accurate Tom Bombadil wouldnât really fit a âmovie-accurateâ adaptation. On that same note, a more serious Tom Bombadil wouldnât fit the book because heâs a fun character in the book.
From there, we also run into a similar issue as the other Lord of the Rings prequel movie thatâs suspected to arrive this year: the age of the cast.
Sure, while having everything happen years after the events of the Lord of the Rings movies can make up for this somewhat, in scenes that go back to the original adventure, there will be problems given the fact that the original cast is 20 years older now. Unless they do a heck of a job with the de-aging software, I donât think itâs going to look good.
Overall, this entire thing is ultimately a desperate attempt to keep the rights to The Lord of the Rings before they expire, but without any of the foresight, creativity, or dedication to Tolkienâs work that characterized the Lord of the Rings movies.
Until next time,
M.J.
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