{"id":642658,"date":"2026-05-14T13:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/642658\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:01:09","slug":"stephen-colbert-pitched-lord-of-the-rings-movie-before-late-show-canceled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/642658\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert Pitched ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie Before ‘Late Show’ Canceled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPeter Jackson<\/a> is discussing for the first time what it\u2019s like working with Stephen Colbert<\/a> on his recently-announced \u201cLord of the Rings,\u201d saying he\u2019s \u201cnever met anyone who knows more about Tolkien\u201d than the late night talk show host.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe phoned me up a year ago \u2014\u00a0before he knew his show was going to finish \u2014\u00a0and said, \u2018I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re interesting, but I\u2019ve got an idea for a Tolkien movie based on the books that I think would be really good,’\u201d Jackson told Variety at the Cannes Film Festival<\/a>, where the director was honored with a Palme d\u2019Or <\/a>on opening night.<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson said he liked Colbert\u2019s pitch enough to set him up with his long-standing collaborator Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote \u201cThe Lord of the Rings<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Hobbit\u201d trilogies, and they worked together for a year on a treatment. Colbert even travelled to New Zealand to be closer to the team. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the middle of this writing process, \u201cThe Late Show\u201d was canceled by CBS (the final episode is set for May 21), a decision Jackson said wasn\u2019t what the show or Colbert \u201cdeserved.\u201d But having such a major project to focus on \u201cafter he got fired\u201d is a major benefit in Jackson\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think Steven\u2019s actually really happy \u2014\u00a0I think it helped him process [something that] what was rather shocking,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it was like, okay, one day he\u2019s going to be a late night talk show host, and the next day he\u2019s going to be a Tolkien scriptwriter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst announced by Jackson via video in late March<\/a>, Colbert\u2019s new \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d installment will follow Andy Serkis\u2019 \u201cThe Hunt for Gollum\u201d and currently has the working title \u201cThe Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWritten by Colbert, his son Peter McGee and Boyens, the film\u2019s official logline reads: \u201cFourteen years after the passing of Frodo \u2014 Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis new project marks Colbert\u2019s first foray into blockbuster development but not his first collaboration with Jackson, having had a small role in 2013\u2019s \u201cThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.\u201d He also directed Jackson, as well as \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d stars Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood, in the 2019 short film \u201cDarrylgorn,\u201d which is set in JRR Tolkien\u2019s Middle-earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Jackson is discussing for the first time what it\u2019s like working with Stephen Colbert on his recently-announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[32176,88,106429,10674,24242],"class_list":["post-642658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-peter-jackson","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}