If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings, there’s a lot of reason to be excited about the future of Middle-earth on the big screen. The animated film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is hitting theaters later this month. Andy Serkis is directing and returning to star in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum in 2026. There are a lot of possibilities for new Middle-earth movies after those, including a brand new film trilogy.
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During a recent interview with The Playlist, Lord of the Rings producer Philippa Boyens was asked about the franchise’s future beyond War of the Rohirrim. Boyens revealed that there are a lot of options on the table, but what happens next will all depend on the response of the audience.
“There’s a lot of [possibilities], when you look at it, there’s a lot of things in there, actually,” Boyens said. “One of the things this [War of the Rohirrim] story has shown us is that a stand-alone story works really successfully within the world of Middle-earth and I would genuinely—because I’ve fallen in love with the form—love to see another anime. But that depends on the audiences out there, your audience, fans of not only the original trilogy, but that vast anime audience. I’m really interested to see what they think.”
It’s all about how the audience responds to the standalone stories like War of the Rohirrim and Hunt for Gollum, and if they’re interested in spending more time exploring different corners of J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe. If the appetite is there for another massive trilogy, like the Oscar-winning series of films from Peter Jackson, then there are ideas amongst the Middle-earth brain trust to make that happen at some point.
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“So we’re in the audiences hands,” the producer continued. “If there’s an appetite for it, we’ve got more stories. There’s a ton of stories left to be told there and some really, really interesting ones. But my preference would be, after Hunt For Gollum, would be to look at those stand-alone stories. And then if we got really ambitious—there are some epic, particular stories that could translate into that more traditional epic trilogy format that was the original Lord Of The Rings, the war of the rings story.”
For fans of The Lord of the Rings, this basically means that these next two movies are important when it comes to showing off your love and support for the franchise. A big response from War of the Rohirrim means more Lord of the Rings is probably not too far behind.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim hits theaters on December 13th.
