If you’re a bit of a fan of American television, you surely know Stephen Colbert. Since his meteoric rise 20 years ago thanks to The Colbert Report until now, the host has more than earned his name to be inscribed in golden letters in the pantheon of political entertainment… And now he also intends to do it in Middle-earth. In case you’re wondering, yes, all of this has been more than discussed with Peter Jackson.
A sequel to rule them all
At the Cannes Film Festival, Peter Jackson explained what happened: “He called me a year ago, before I knew his show was going to end, and said ‘I don’t know if you’re interested, but I have an idea for a Tolkien movie based on the books that I think would be really good‘”. It should be noted that the host is a big fan of the saga. So much so that he appears in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug alongside his wife and two children in a small cameo.
And what is the biggest dream for Tolkien fans? Indeed, to demonstrate everything they know about The Lord of the Rings by creating a derivative work themselves. In Colbert’s case, they have been working on the project for a year and everything indicates that it is moving forward, especially after his show was canceled. Unfair, yes, but an undeniable advantage for Jackson.
“I think Steven is really happy. I think it helped him process something so surprising. So I thought, okay, one day he will be a talk show host, and the next a Tolkien screenwriter.” For now, we only know that the movie is about Sam, Merry, and Pippin retracing the path of The Lord of the Rings 14 years later while Sam’s daughter discovers a secret and decides to find out why they almost lost the War of the Ring before it even started. As far as I’m concerned, we can skip the Gollum movie and go straight to this one; I don’t know how you all see it.