The Lord of the Rings prequel anime movie, The War Of The Rohirrim, is coming in 2024. According to Variety, New Line and Warner Bros are planning to release The War Of The Rohirrim on April 12, 2024, although we don’t know if it’ll be hitting theatres or their streaming service HBO Max first.
Set hundreds of years, before the second coming of Sauron and the time of the Fellowship, The War Of The Rohirrim will focus on Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, after which the fortress Helm’s Deep besieged by Uruk-Hai in The Two Towers is named. While we don’t know exact plot details, we can make some educated guesses as to what the series will focus on.
Hammerhand led the Rohirrim in their war against the Dunlendings after they invaded Rohan. It was this invasion that eventually led to the White Wizard Saruman taking over Isengard after the Rohirrim defeated the Dunlending leadership who set up base there. This lay the groundwork for Sauron and Saruman to poison the minds of the Kings of Rohan, weakening the Kingdom of Men.
Kenji Kamiyama is directing The War of the Rohirrim. Kenji’s something of a legend having got his start working on anime series like Patlabor and Hakkenden: Legend of the Dog Warriors. More recently, he’s worked o projects like Star Wars: Visions and Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
He’ll be working from a script written by Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, and it’s believed that the film will connect somehow to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. With elves and other magical folk living so long in Middle-earth, it’s possible we’ll see some of our favourite Lord of the Rings characters pop up to help out Hammerhand.
The War Of The Rohirrim isn’t the only project in development. Amazon’s working on a Lord of the Rings TV series set during the Second Age titled The Rings of Power.
The first season of The Rings of Power will last eight episodes, and it premieres on Prime Video on September 2.