Stephen Colbert ends his run on The Late Show on May 21. He already has his next job. And if you know anything about his relationship with J.R.R. Tolkien, it is going to make complete sense.
Warner Bros. revealed on March 25, Tolkien Reading Day, the anniversary of the destruction of the One Ring, that Colbert will co-write the next Lord of the Rings film for Peter Jackson.
The movie, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, is the second of two new LOTR films currently in development at Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema.
Jackson and Colbert announced it together in a video call posted to Warner Bros.’ social media, with Jackson describing Colbert as his “very special partner.”
“I’m pretty happy about it,” Colbert told Jackson in the video. “You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me.”
That is, to put it mildly, an understatement.
What Is The Colbert Lord Of The Rings Project?
The script is being written by Colbert, his son Peter McGee, and Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote all three original Lord of the Rings films and all three Hobbit films with Jackson and Fran Walsh.
The film is being produced by WingNut Films, Jackson’s production company, in association with Spartina Industries. Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens are all attached as producers.
The story is adapted from chapters three through eight of Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the section of the book that Jackson’s 2001 film skipped almost entirely.
Those chapters follow the hobbits from the Shire through the Old Forest, their encounter with the mysterious and beloved Tom Bombadil, and ultimately their escape from a barrow-wight in the fog-soaked Barrow-downs.
Tom Bombadil is one of the most beloved characters among Tolkien purists and one of the most notable omissions from Jackson’s original trilogy.
The official logline frames it through a clever structural device,
“Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s 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.”
The framing device, aging Sam, Merry, and Pippin revisiting the path they walked as young hobbits, allows the film to be faithful to both the original books and the already-established film versions of those characters simultaneously.
That tension was apparently central to how Colbert pitched it.
How Did Colbert Make This Happen
The backstory is the most remarkable part of the announcement. Colbert did not receive a call from a studio.
He conceived of this film himself, spent years working up the nerve to pitch it, and ultimately cold-called one of the most celebrated directors in cinema history.
“The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship of the Ring that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Colbert said in the announcement video.
“It’s basically the chapter ‘Three is Company’ through ‘Fog on the Barrow-Downs.’ And then I thought, ‘Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?'”
He discussed the framing with his son Peter McGee, a working screenwriter whose credits include production work on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Netflix’s Outer Banks, HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, and Blue Bloods.
Together they developed the structural approach for the story. Then Colbert sat on it.
“It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile and give you a call,” Colbert told Jackson on the video call.
“But about two years ago, I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it, and ever since then, the two of us have been working with the brilliant Philippa Boyens on how to develop this story.”
He added, “I could not be happier to say that they loved it. And so that’s what we’re going to be working on.”
Why Colbert?
There is no celebrity fan of Tolkien in public life who has been more consistently and demonstrably serious about it than Stephen Colbert.
He has cited the books in segments throughout his career with the kind of specificity that only comes from someone who has read them many times. In 2014, he moderated a Hobbit panel at Comic-Con in full Tolkien-era costume and famously stumped his guests with lore questions.
In 2013, he had a small cameo in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. He also directed Peter Jackson, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood in a short film in 2019.
This is not a celebrity vanity project. Colbert has been working on this specific pitch, with professional screenwriters, for two years before the announcement was made public.
Boyens, the person who co-wrote the scripts that earned 17 combined Oscars across the original trilogy and Hobbit filmsm is on it. Jackson is producing. Warner Bros. is behind it.
Colbert acknowledged the timing with characteristic dry awareness in the announcement, “It turns out I’m going to be free starting this summer.”
What Comes First?
Before Shadow of the Past reaches screens, the next Lord of the Rings film will be The Hunt for Gollum, directed by and starring Andy Serkis — who played Gollum across all six original films.
Jackson gave an update on that project in the same announcement video: “Andy is doing a terrific job. It’s looking amazing. The script is coming together really well and I think it’s going to be a really good film.” That film is currently set for release on December 17, 2027.
Shadow of the Past does not yet have a release date, a director attached, or confirmation of which original cast members might appear.
Given the framing device places Sam, Merry, and Pippin as older characters revisiting their past, the door is open for Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan to reprise their roles in age-appropriate fashion, but none of that has been confirmed.
Colbert closed the announcement with a line that, for anyone who has followed his career, landed exactly right.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to finish the television show and I’ve got to write a movie script. But I will see you all in the Shire.”
