The bombshell that Warner Bros. Discovery is intent on returning to the franchise that helped them dominate the field in the early 2000s comes after news that broke last year, in which video game company Embracer laid claim to the rights for both “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.” This led to a bit of a turf war between Embracer and Warner Bros., the latter of whom contended that they never lost the rights in the first place.
Thankfully, THR shines a light on that iffy situation, claiming that provisions in Embracer’s deal “allows Warners to develop features based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ books and ‘The Hobbit.'” If this sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it’s reminiscent of Prime Video acquiring the rights to Tolkien’s books alone, particularly the appendices found at the end of “The Return of the King” that gave “The Rings of Power” showrunners the ability to fill in the blanks of previously unseen Middle-earth history. For our current purposes, this suggests that fans can expect Warner Bros. to bring brand-new material to the big screen … though THR hints at the idea that “big guns” like the most identifiable heroes from the Fellowship — think Aragorn, Gandalf, and all the rest — may be on the table.
WB is also releasing an anime feature called “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” in theaters in 2024, so it’s possible these newly announced films may be animated. There’s certain to be more news and speculation to come, so stay tuned to /Film for all the details.