Unless it’s The Silmarillion, don’t bother making more Lord of the Rings movies

Last week, we learned that Warner Bros. Discovery intends to make new Lord of the Rings movies…and that’s about all we know. We don’t know if that means a remake of The Lord of the Rings story we’re all familiar with, a spinoff, or what.

However, we can suss out what WBD has the rights to make, although not easily, as the screen rights to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien are a tangled mess. Here’s a simplified timeline:

• In 1968, author J.R.R. Tolkien sold the film, stage and merchandising rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings — his two most famous works — to United Artists. Tolkien reportedly sold the rights for around for $120k. Considering that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies brought in well over $2 billion at the box office, Tolkien sold the rights for way less than they were worth. The Tolkien Estate didn’t share in the later windfalls.
• In 1976, United Artists sold the rights to the Saul Zaentz Company, which created a subdivision called Tolkien Enterprises to manage them. They produced an animated Lord of the Rings movie in 1978, directed by Ralph Bakshi. It adapts roughly the first half of Tolkien’s trilogy.

• Later, Tolkien Enterprises licensed the Lord of the Rings movie rights to New Line Cinema, which produced Peter Jackson’s famous trilogy of movies in the early 2000s.
• In 2010, Tolkien Enterprises changes its name to Middle-earth Enterprises. And remember that’s it’s basically just a trade name for a subsidiary of the Saul Zaentz Company.
• So Middle-earth Enterprises had the movie rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. But Tolkien never sold the TV rights. In 2017, Amazon negotiated directly with the Tolkien Estate to buy the television rights for around $250 million, a crazy sum. That’s what The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is based on. Specifically, it’s based on the appendices at the end of The Return of the King.
• In 2022, entertainment holding company Embracer Group bought Middle-earth Enterprises, so they now effectively have the movie rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Embracer has teamed up with New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures to make whatever new Lord of the Rings movies we end up getting.

Okay, so WBD has the rights to make new movies based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. But there’s a problem: we already have movie trilogies based on those things, and one of them is really good. While I wouldn’t mind a live-action movie version of The Hobbit that wasn’t stretched out and dull like Jackson’s trilogy ended up being, the fact is that this is well-trod ground, whatever executives say about how much of Tolkien’s world “remains largely unexplored on film.”

That goes double when you throw in The Rings of Power, which is taking a series of bullet points from Tolkien’s original trilogy and trying to stretch them out into a TV show, with limited success. I’m afraid anything WBD comes up with is going to feel pointless or boring. Do we need a movie about Young Gimli that’s mostly made up by screenwriters? A movie about what Gandalf did all day when Saruman trapped him in that tower? A movie about Lobelia Sackville-Baggins terrorizing her neighbors? (Okay, that one I would watch.)

Personally, I don’t think so. Honestly, there’s really only one of Tolkien’s major works that hasn’t yet been overexposed onscreen, and at the moment it’s the only one I’m interested in watching an adaptation of: The Silmarillion.

Who has the rights to The Silmarillion?

J.R.R. Tolkien began writing The Silmarillion in 1914, years before he started work on The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. Those two stories are both set in the Third Age of Middle-earth, when the elves are leaving and much of the wonder and magic that was once in the world has gone. The Silmarillion is mostly concerned with the First Age, when the elves first appeared in Middle-earth and eventually fought against the Valar Morgoth, basically a dark god who had a hand in the creation of the world. Sauron was one of Morgoth’s chief lieutenants.

Tolkien didn’t finish The Silmarillion while he was alive. After he died in 1973, his son Christopher drew from his father’s texts and completed the book, which was published in 1977.

The Silmarillion has never been adapted to the screen, big or small. Tolkien didn’t sell off the rights to it in 1966, mainly because it wasn’t done yet, so they remain with the Tolkien Estate. Thus far, we’ve never heard of the Estate entertaining an offer to part with the rights, but at this point, it’s the only major work of Tolkien’s that would be worth putting on the screen, and if I were WBD I would do everything I could to make it happen.

The Silmarillion is the only choice for a new Lord of the Rings movie

The Silmarillion is a very different sort of book from The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. To start, it covers a much longer period of time; that’ll happen when most of your characters are immortal. The book begins with the creation of the world, or Arda. Melkor, the most powerful of the god-like Valar, sets himself out as an early antagonist. He seethes when the elves first appear in Middle-earth, and corrupts some into orcs. He sets himself up as a dark lord and messes with things until the rest of the Valar take it upon themselves to come to Middle-earth, tear down his palace of Utumno and imprison him back in Valinor, the blessed land.

Melkor is eventually released from prison, destroys the Two Trees of Valinor and steals the three Silmarils; with the trees gone, these jewels alone contain vestiges of the light that was present at the beginning of creation.

Melkor, now named Morgoth, takes the Silmarils and sets himself up anew in Middle-earth, this time in the palace of Angband. The creator of the Silmarils, an elf named Fëanor, leads a rebellion of Noldorin elves (including a young Galadriel) out of Valinor to Middle-earth, where they will spend centuries fighting Morgoth. This is where the bulk of The Silmarillion concerns itself.

What would a Silmarillion movie (or movies) look like?

Because the story is so sprawling, adapting The Silmarillion as a series of movies could be tricky. Then again, there are a lot of great tales to be told, and plentiful descriptions to help with tone and mood.

For instance, there could be a movie about Beren and Lúthien, a mortal man and elven woman who fall in love and end up stealing a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown. It’s among the most achingly romantic stories Tolkien ever wrote. There’s the Fall of Gondolin, one of his earliest stories, about a hidden elven city that is betrayed from the inside and destroyed by Morgoth’s forces. There’s the story of Túrin Turambar, a tragic human warrior who faces off with the father of dragons, has run-ins with the dwarves and who commits accidental incest. And of course there’s the eventual defeat of Morgoth in the War of Wrath, which reshapes Middle-earth forever. All of these stories would make good movies. If WBD did it right, they could have a series that lasts many years.

I don’t know if there’s a creative team talented and bold enough to do The Silmarillion justice, but I do know that trying is way more interesting than making The Young Aragorn Story or whatever they’re cooking up. So Hollywood, if you absolutely must make new Lord of the Rings movies, at least make them based on the one Tolkien book that hasn’t already been done to death, one that explores things many fans haven’t seen before. Make movies about The Silmarillion.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels