With the “Hobbit” film series or the series “The Rings of Power” there are already links to the successful “Lord of the Rings” trilogy with Frodo, Gandalf and Co. Since Warner Bros. has now secured film rights, fans can look forward to even more Middle-earth stuff.
As the industry magazine “The Hollywood Reporter” reports, the film studio Warner Bros. has secured the “Lord of the Rings” film rights. Warner Bros. and its film label New Line Cinema, which is also behind Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” trilogies, have therefore entered into a multi-year deal with Embracer Group AB. The Swedish media group currently holds the film rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s most famous works “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.
In contrast to Amazon, which only holds the TV rights to the so-called Second Age of Middle-earth, the new deal allows Warner Bros. to use iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn or Bilbo Baggins. It remains to be seen whether the film studio will dare to do a new edition of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
In a joint statement, Warner Bros. co-principals Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy said: “For all the scale and detail lovingly poured into the two trilogies, the universe remains vast, complex and overwhelming , which J.R.R. Tolkien dreamed up, is largely unexplored in film”. Now it is planned to “invite fans deeper into the cinematic world of Middle-earth”.
It is likely that Warner Bros. will begin development on one or more Lord of the Rings film projects. The release of the animated film “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” has previously been announced for April 2024. The anime movie takes place around 200 years before Jackson’s film series about Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf.
The “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy brought in almost three billion US dollars at the box office at the beginning of the millennium. All six of Warner Bros.’ Middle-earth films combined grossed $6 billion.
At the end of last year, fans could already look forward to the Amazon series “The Rings of Power” from the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is viewed critically in online reviews on many portals. It takes place thousands of years before the stories of Frodo and his companions.
