WB Wants Even More Lord Of The Rings Movies
WB today announced, during an investor’s call, that they aren’t finished with Tolkien’s Middle Earth just yet, and that they have multiple films (plural) in development. They didn’t go into detail beyond that, but released a statement regarding it.
“Twenty years ago, New Line took an unprecedented leap of faith to realize the incredible stories, characters and world of The Lord of the Rings on the big screen. The result was a landmark series of films that have been embraced by generations of fans,” says Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy of WB. “But for all the scope and detail lovingly packed into the two trilogies, the vast, complex and dazzling universe dreamed up by J.R.R. Tolkien remains largely unexplored on film.”
You sure? It feels pretty tapped out to us. The big books have already been done. All that remains are a bunch of side notes and short stories, part of which Amazon already adapted in their very loud, very expensive look-at-me project The Rings Of Power. (As for how WB and Amazon can do Rings stuff at the same time, the rights are a tangled mess). But we’re not getting more LOTR because there’s still a rich vein of lore to tap. We’re getting more LOTR because it’s considered low-risk.
It’s like none of these people remember there was once a time when filming Tolkien was considered SUCH a risk that no one would do it. LOTR was thought to be “unfilmable.” It was because Peter Jackson courted New Line so hard that they eventually gave in on a three-picture commitment…and once the property finally proved itself, it had the opposite problem. Now LOTR is the only thing anyone will make.
If you keep serving up microwaved leftovers of 20-year-old dishes instead of anything new, the interest is just not gonna be there, and the money’s just NOT going to come. Just ask Disney, who….still hasn’t learned that lesson by greenlighting Toy Story 5 and Frozen 3.
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