It sounds like Peter Jackson is not only interested in tackling more Lord of the Rings films, but he may finally adapt a previously unadaptable story.
The Lord of the Rings has been in the headlines more frequently this year, with the 25th anniversary of the film trilogy upon us. There’s also The Rings of Power coming back in November, and Andy Serkis is working on his The Hunt for Gollum film. Though he’s not involved in the Prime Video show, Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director who brought the acclaimed novels to the big screen, is producing the new films.
Jackson could get somewhere with the Tolkien Estate
While speaking to Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival (as reported by NME), Jackson discussed several upcoming projects. He also revealed that he may finally get around to tackling The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
Jackson first noted the key problem in how Warner Bros. owns the rights to the saga, and the upheaval with their merger with Paramount is affecting things.
“Well, I mean, it's frustrating because look at the reality is at the moment Warner Brothers only owns The Lord of the Rings in terms of cinema,” he explained. “So in part of Lord of the Rings is this appendices, which is about I mean, it's quite long. It's about 45, 50 pages of sort of notes, notes about background stories. And I mean, it's strange. I mean, you know, you can obviously read it yourself to see what's there…Eventually, the appendices is going to run dry.”
When Jackson mentioned the “appendices,” he’s referring to a collection of documents explaining important pieces of The Lord of the Rings lore, written by J.R.R. Tolkien. This would likely mean finally adapting The Silmarillion, which has long been pushed by fans but held up by legal issues.
To sum up a long story, the rights to the books were sold by Tolkien in 1969, and upon his death in 1973, his son, Christopher, took over. Christopher was vocal about not liking Jackson’s adaptations of LOTR and The Hobbit, so he wasn’t going to allow an adaptation of other works.
Jackson noted the problems with trying to get anything done thanks to Christopher’s bias. “I mean, there's a lot more Tolkien writing, which we should actually make great, great movies that were subsequently edited and released by Christopher. But he just absolutely would not let any, the mere idea of a film happen. So those rights have never been available,” he stated.
However, with Christopher’s death in 2020, the Tolkien Estate seems more open to adapting a work.
“The younger Tolkiens, the sort of this next generation are now running the estate and they're much more, you know, much more open to talking,” Jackson explained. “So I know the Warners, a combination of Warners and us have been talking to some of the younger Tolkien members who are part of the, who are now part of the board about the possibility of actually, of actually, of actually licensing the rights to some of the other books. It'd be nice to get away from the appendices and get something a bit more meaty, you know.”
Fans can agree on that, as those other volumes are ripe with story potential.
Other stories to be told
Fans of LOTR know the tale of the “Ages.” The main trilogy and The Hobbit are set in the Third Age, while Rings of Power is set in the Second Age. That still leaves the First Age taking place thousands of years in the past. There are scores of potential tales, most fixating on Melkor, the first Dark Lord, one of the divine spirits known as the Ainur who would later become the Valar.
Melkor would end up warping elves into orcs, trolls, and other monsters, causing the War of Wrath. He’s eventually defeated and deposed to leave things in the hands of his second-in-command: Sauron.
In other words, we’d have the origins of Middle-earth and so many of the conflicts that would come in the later work. That would be fodder for some fun movies, as they wouldn’t have to be some single epic trilogy or such. We could get ones focusing on the smaller characters with The Book of Lost Tales and The Children of Hurin as standalone stories.
There is a concern among fans who already witnessed Jackson turning the slim, fun Hobbit into a bloated three-film saga that ultimately felt lacking. The studio's pressure to make a bigger film than needed could rob the tale of its magic. Perhaps with a better focus on a smaller story, Jackson can restore the spirit that made the LOTR trilogy so beloved.
It would likely be a long time before any of these projects come to life as Jackson still has to deal with the rights issues. Yet the idea of him finally expanding on his magical world is exciting to fans to bring Tolkien's full vision of Middle-earth to the screen.
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