A new company has bought the rights to The Lord of the Rings, which means we could get new fantasy movies from Middle-earth at some point in the future. While it may be strange to imagine seeing the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn on the big screen again, its a very real possibility.
The original Lord of the Rings movies are considered some of the best movies of all time, so the thought of anyone trying to continue those stories or worse still, daring to remake them, is enough to send Hobbit fans into disarray. At least with the new Prime Video TV series The Rings of Power, the story will be taking place centuries before the events of Frodo’s quest to Mordor, so that’s okay.
The adventure movie series and its source material belonged to The Saul Zaentz Company until recently, but that ownership elapsed. Now, as per Variety, the Swedish media company Embracer won the bidding war for the Lord of the Rings property, and the company can produce everything from games, to books, to new movies from Middle-earth.
It was assumed that Amazon would be in pole position to take over the reigns for all of JRR Tolkien’s creations, given its involvement in the new TV show for the Prime Video streaming service.
That didn’t come to fruition though, and now Embracer hold the keys to all of the iconic stories and characters from Middle-earth. In the company’s press release on August 18, 2022, Embracer teased its plans for the future of the franchise.
Among these plans was the idea to create character-centric stories around some of the more recognisable figures from Lord of the Rings folklore. Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, and Éowyn are mentioned directly as possible options for any future project.
It’s certainly hard to imagine anyone but Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, so it will be fascinating to see how Embracer would handle any new depictions of such an iconic character. No official plans for any new movies based on the books just yet, but we wait with baited breath for news on the fate of the epic family movie saga.