What Is Stephen Colbert’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie About?

Stephen Colbert is developing a new Lord of the Rings movie at Warner Bros.

In a video posted to Warner Bros.’ X account Tuesday evening (March 24), the franchise’s longtime big-screen adaptation director, Peter Jackson, revealed Colbert is co-writing a brand new film about Middle Earth alongside his son, Peter McGee, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Philippa Boyens.

The idea for the film, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, was conceived by Colbert, who has been working to develop a script for the past two years.

“The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in [The Fellowship of the Ring] that ya’ll never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically the chapter ‘Three is Company’ [Chapter III] through ‘Fog on the Barrow-Downs’ [Chapter VIII]. And I thought, ‘Oh, 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 that you guys had already made?’” Colbert tells Jackson in the video.

READ MORE: Kate Winslet to Star in Next Lord of the Rings Movie

If you didn’t know, Colbert is a longtime Lord of the Rings fan. The late-night TV host and writer appeared in a small cameo role in 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. He also directed a 2019 short film called Darrylgorn, which is set in Middle-earth.

Meanwhile, speaking at a fan event earlier this year, Elijah Wood, who plays the Hobbit Frodo Baggins in the film series, teased that additional Lord of the Rings movies were being considered for development. Fans can only wonder if this is just one of the potential projects Wood was referring to.

The next Lord of the Rings movie to hit theaters will be The Hunt for Gollum, scheduled for release on December 17, 2027.

So, What Is The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past About?

The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past will tell a story pulled from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Fellowship of the Ring that didn’t make it into Jackson’s 2001 movie.

Deadline reports the movie will be largely based on the book’s early chapters, emphasizing its eighth chapter, “Fogs on the Barrow-downs,” in which the Hobbits become trapped in a sinister fog.

According to the film’s official synopsis, per Variety:

Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.

The film will also feature Tom Bombadil — a fan-favorite character from the book who was not included in Jackson’s 2000s trilogy.