Shaheer Ahmed
Warner Bros., the Hollywood studio behind Peter Jackson’s blockbuster Oscar-winning trilogy, announced Thursday that several additional Lord of the Rings movies are in the works.
In an earnings call, David Zaslav, CEO of parent company Warner Bros Discovery, revealed that newly recruited studio heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy have agreed to produce future motion pictures based on JRR Tolkien’s epic fantasy novels.
“Today, I’m thrilled to announce that Mike and Pam signed a deal to make multiple Lord of the Rings movies,” he said. “Lord of the Rings is one of the most iconic storytelling franchises of all time, and we’re so excited. Stay tuned for more to come on this front.”
No information was given regarding which plots or time periods from Tolkien’s massive works will serve as the basis for the new movies. They will be created by New Line Cinema, a Warner subsidiary that also produced Jackson’s first trilogy.
The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, a television adaption produced by rival studio Amazon, was released in September. Five seasons of that prequel to the Lord of the Rings books are planned, with an estimated $1 billion in total production costs. With 25 million viewers on the first day, the first season’s premiere was the most watched on the Prime Video streaming service, however the reviews were mixed.
The first three Lord of the Rings films from Jackson made close to $3 billion at the box office and were nominated for 17 Oscars, including best picture for The Return of the King from the 2003 trilogy. Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Cate Blanchett all acted in them. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, a following trilogy based on Tolkien’s The Hobbit was also a huge box office success.
