Stephen Colbert to write new Lord of the Rings film

Comedian and avid Tolkien fan to write the Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, a new Peter Jackson-produced film based on unadapted chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring

Stephen Colbert has announced in a video alongside director Peter Jackson that he will be writing a new Lord of the Rings film. Picture: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File

Stephen Colbert has lined up his next job after finishing up as host of The Late Show in May: writing a new Lord of the Rings film tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.

Film-maker Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy, made the surprise announcement in a video on social media on Tuesday. Colbert is an avid, lifelong JRR Tolkien fan and even had a small cameo in Jackson’s 2013 film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug alongside his wife and children.

Deadline reported the film will be titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past and will be written by Colbert, Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee. 

Set 14 years after the passing of Frodo, the film will follow Sam, Merry, and Pippin as they set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile Sam’s daughter, Elanor, discovers “a long-buried secret that explains why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began”.

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In a video with Jackson, Colbert said he was inspired to develop a story after rereading The Fellowship of the Ring, and thinking about chapters three to eight, which were not included in Jackson’s film adaptation.

“You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me, but the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in the Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Colbert told Jackson.

“I thought, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies?” 

Ian McKellen as Gandalf with Elijah Wood as Frodo. Picture: New Line/WireImage

Colbert said he then planned an outline for the story with his son, the screenwriter Peter Colbert.

“It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it … and I could not be happier that [Warner Bros.] loved it,” Colbert told Jackson.

Jackson joked that Colbert would have to find time to adapt the film, in reference to the highly contentious cancellation of CBS’s The Late Show, which Colbert has hosted since 2015. The cancellation was criticised as politically motivated, coming just after Colbert criticised CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for making a $16m settlement with Donald Trump, who has been vocal about his dislike for Colbert.

Elijah Wood as Frodo and Sean Astin as Sam in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Picture: AP Photo/Pierre Vinet, New Line Cinema

In response, Colbert said: “It turns out I’m going to be free starting this summer”, to which Jackson replied: “Isn’t that fortunate?” 

The film will be produced by Jackson along with the franchise’s longtime producers Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh.

Colbert’s film is the second upcoming film in Tolkien’s universe. Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is set to be released 17 December 2027, will be directed by Gollum himself – Andy Serkis – and will follow Aragorn on his quest to capture Gollum during the time period between The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring, in order to keep the ring from Sauron.

The six Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies have grossed a combined US$5.9bn (€5.1bn).

• The Guardian