Elijah Wood, the star of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has expressed his ‘surprise’ over plans that Warner Bros. Discovery are developing multiple new films based on the original novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. The studio made the announcement in February. Wood played the Hobbit, Frodo Baggins, in Peter Jackson‘s legendary series of films which grossed almost $3 billion worldwide, and which are considered to be not just three of the greatest films ever made, but one of cinema’s greatest ever achievements. The success was further established when the third film, Return of the King, won a record-equalling 11 Academy Awards.
“I’m fascinated and I’m excited. I hope it’s good,” Wood said to GQ magazine about the new films. “I’m surprised—I don’t know why I’m surprised because, of course there would be more movies.” Wood continued, explaining that he was aware the main reason for wanting to further exploit the Lord of the Rings intellectual property would come down to economics – after all, why own the rights to a property if you don’t intend on producing material derived for it? That said, the trilogy’s leading man expressed a perhaps-forlorn hope that creativity could override capitalism when it came to further adapting Tolkien’s works.
Obviously at the core of that, is a desire to make a lot of money. It’s not that a bunch of executives are like, ‘Let’s make really awesome art.’ And, again, not begrudging anybody because, of course, it is commerce. But great art can come from commerce. So those two things are not mutually exclusive.
Peter Jackson’s films came out of a passion for these books and wanting to see them realized. And I hope that that is ultimately what will drive everything forward with whatever these subsequent movies are. I just hope that it’s the same motivating factor at its core, whenever they hire a screenwriter and a filmmaker—that it is with reverence for Tolkien’s material and enthusiasm to explore it.
Why Is Warner Bros. Returning to the Fantasy Well?
All that Warner Bros. Discovery have confirmed thus far about Rings is that there will be “multiple films based on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien”, with no further information given on if these will be reimaginings, new adaptations or sequels to the Jackson films. The desire to further mine Tolkien’s works – and Moria – is all part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s plans to boost their intellectual property output, which comes at the same time as an aggressive promotional push for their rebranded streaming service, Max, which was notable for the announcement that they would also be revisiting iconic literary figure Harry Potter, in a ten-year commitment to an original series. That film series opened in November 2001, just one month before the launch of Wood’s Fellowship of the Ring.
Return of the King is returning to theaters next week for a limited run. Check out more information on that here.
