Can you believe it’s been 20 years since the first Lord of the Rings film landed in cinemas?
The trilogy of movies, directed by Peter Jackson, grossed $2.991 billion worldwide, won 17 Academy Awards and spawned the Hobbit prequel trilogy and an upcoming series from Amazon.
According to Deadline, the series is set in Middle-earth and will explore new storylines preceding J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The show is already underway in New Zealand and is the biggest production in the world to resume filming post the coronavirus lockdown and will also beat Game of Thrones and The Crown as the most expensive TV show in history.
Next up, an original anime set in Tolkien’s fantasy world is in the works over at New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. The project will be a standalone feature titled The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
The new animation will focus on Helm’s Deep, which you might remember as being the fortress at the centre of the battle in The Two Towers. The plot of the new feature will be set a few hundred years before the second instalment in the trilogy and will explore Helm’s Deep’s backstory by way of the life of its founder, Helm Hammerhand, the king of Rohan.
While Jackson is not attached to the new project, he is said to have given it his blessing — likely because it is in such capable hands.
The War of the Rohirrim will be directed by Kenji Kamiyama, an anime veteran who last directed the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Joseph Chou will produce the film which will be released on the big screen.
In a joint statement, executives from both New Line and Warner Bros. spoke of their excitement for the feature saying, “Fans know Helm’s Deep as the stage for one of the greatest battles ever put to film and, with many of the same creative visionaries involved and the brilliant Kenji Kamiyama at the helm, we couldn’t be more excited to deliver a fresh vision of its history that will invite global audiences to experience the rich, complex saga of Middle-earth in a thrilling new way.”
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