When it rains The Lord of the Rings, it pours The Lord of the Rings. Sometime this year, we will get to watch the second season of The Rings of Power, the Prime Video TV series set during the Second Age of Middle-earth. Not to be outdone, New Line Cinema — the studio behind Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy from the early '00s — is preparing a new animated movie called The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, that's also coming out this year.
This comes directly from Paramount's presentation at CinemaCon, per ComicBook.com. The War of the Rohirrim is set around 180 years before the War of the Ring and tells the story of Helm Hammerhand, a king of Rohan who defended his kingdom against an army of Dunlendings. The stronghold of Helm's Deep is named after Helm Hammerhand, so consider this movie an origin story for that sick battle scene in The Two Towers.
The War of the Rohirrim is directed by Kenji Kamiyama, known for his work on anime series like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Blade Runner: Black Lotus. It stars folks like Brian Cox (who played Logan Roy on Succession; I imagine he'll be Helm Hammerhand), Gaia Wise, Luke Pasqualino, Lorraine Ashbourne, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Laurence Ubong Williams, Shaun Dooley Michael, Jude Akuwudike, Bilal Hasna and Janine Duvitski.
Miranda Otto is also part of the cast. You'll remember her as Rohan shield-maiden Eowyn in Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. The War of the Rohirrim is set long before Eowyn was born, but Otto could provide narration or whatnot.
The Lord of the Rings vs The Lord of the Rings
All we know for sure is that The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will be out during "the Holiday 2024 release window." We don't have an exact date. We also don't know exactly when the second season of The Rings of Power is coming; if it comes out this year as planned, it will probably also be towards the back.
That means that these two pieces of Lord of the Rings entertainment — which are made by different studios and have no crossover between them beyond both being set in Middle-earth — will likely go head to head. There's a lot of inter-franchise fighting going on lately:
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.