Stephen Colbert To Co-Write New Film

Stephen Colbert is switching sets for scripts as he is set to pen a new The Lord of the Rings movie alongside Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee.

The announcement was made by the director of the original trilogy, Peter Jackson, through a video with Colbert on social media on Tuesday. With the film being one of two upcoming films in the iconic franchise, set to release after The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.

The film is tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past and is set 14 years after the passing of Frodo, following 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”.

SUPPORT US!!! WE ARE A SMALL, INDEPENDENT FILM WEBSITE WITH NO BIG BACKERS, SO IF YOU LOVE OUR SITE AND OUR WRITERS, PLEASE CONSIDER HELPING US TO KEEP FILM JOURNALISM ALIVE!

Colbert is a lifelong fan of the franchise, even featuring in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and shared that he was inspired to develop the story after rereading The Fellowship of the Ring, saying:

“The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship [of the Ring] that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically chapters ‘Three Is Company’ through ‘Fog on the Barrow-downs,’ 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?”

After this, he spoke to his son, screenwriter McGee, to come up with an outline for the story, adding that “It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you [Jackson] a call, but about two years ago I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it, and ever since then, the two of us have been working with the brilliant Philippa Boyens on how to develop this story.”

Jackson will produce the film alongside the franchise’s longtime producers, Boyens and Fran Walsh.