Stephen Colbert to Write New Lord of the Rings Movie

Warner Bros., which reportedly needs to have a new Lord of the Rings movie in development every few years to maintain its licensing agreement, has settled on its next project. Late Show host and LoTR fan boy Stephen Colbert will write a new film called The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, co-written by Late Show host Stephen Colbert with his son, screenwriter Peter McGee, and longtime LoTR scribe Philippa Boyens.

The film is inspired by the six chapters (III-VIII) of JRR Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring that didn’t make it into Peter Jackson’s 2001 film adaptation. Specifically, per the official logline: “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”

“You know what the books mean to me, and what your films mean to me,” Colbert told Jackson in a video announcing the project. “But the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in [The Fellowship of the Ring] that ya’ll never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically the chapter ‘Three Is Company’ [Chapter III] through ‘Fog on the Barrow-Downs’ [Chapter VIII]. 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?’”

Colbert said he will begin working on the script once his tenure as host of the Late Show ends this spring.

Shadows of the Past is not the only Lord of the Rings film in development: Andy Serkis is directing The Hunt for Gollum, which has a targeted release of December 2027.

In honor of Tolkien Reading Day and the destruction of the One Ring, we bring you a special announcement. pic.twitter.com/ufh9RLBIxO

— Warner Bros. (@warnerbros) March 25, 2026