“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Who could have guessed that J.R.R. Tolkien’s rather curious opening line from 1937’s The Hobbit would go on to spawn a fantasy franchise that would inspire generations of readers and moviegoers, and serve as the benchmark against which all other works in the genre are inevitably measured?

Yet, when Peter Jackson finally released The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014, most audiences assumed it would be the last time they would get the chance to return to Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Wrapping up both Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, and his adaptations of Tolkien’s works that began with his previous The Lord of the Rings adaptations, the New Zealand filmmaker had seemingly delivered the final and definitive onscreen versions of the world’s most beloved fantasy tales.

But in true Tolkien fashion, the Lord of the Rings franchise did something it did not intend and was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a Harfoot of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Though not to be undone, Warner Bros. forged in secret a master plan, beginning with their own animated film, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, the studio now has plans for many more Lord of the Rings movies to come.

With Bombur himself, The Hobbit trilogy’s Stephen Hunter set to join us in Melbourne (6-7 April), we thought it timely to look into Supanova’s very own palantír and discover what the lost seeing stone can tell us about the future of The Lord of the Rings on screen.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Slated for release in December this year, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim not only marks Warner Bros.’s first return to the Lord of the Rings franchise since Peter Jackson’s movies, but it is also intended to serve as a direct prequel to his adaptations. Set 261 years before Frodo and his friends embarked on their journey to Mount Doom, The War of the Rohirrim will tell the story of the legendary King of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Succession’s Brian Cox) and his fight against the Wildmen of Dunland.

Helping to bridge the gap between this new animated movie and the original Peter Jackson films, Lord of the Rings star and Supanova alumna Miranda Otto is returning to narrate the movie as her character Éowyn. Additionally, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote the original Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, also served as a consultant on this new Middle Earth project.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2

Morfydd Clark as Galadriel and Tyroe Muhafidin as Theo in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’

Also recently confirmed for a 2024 release, Prime Video’s own Lord of the Rings television series is set to return for its second season following 2022’s season 1 release. Though no specific date has yet been revealed, according to The Hollywood Reporter, season 2 will arrive later this year and showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have signed a new three-year deal with Amazon MGM Studios to continue their work into season 3 and beyond.

Following on from season 1’s surprise reveal of Charlie Vickers’ Halbrand as Sauron, season 2 is purported to be a much darker tale, with McKay suggesting that “evil has emerged and is active and has a plan”. Meanwhile, season 2 will also see the addition of some other famous Tolkien characters, including the elf Círdan, who fought against both Sauron and the original dark lord Morgoth, and would eventually be the one to gift the Elvish ring Narya to Gandalf.

Future Lord of the Rings Films

In June last year, Swedish video game and media company the Embracer Group swooped in to purchase Middle-earth Enterprises (the company that currently owns the rights to adapt films based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, due mainly to an original deal Tolkien made in 1969 with Universal Artists). Shortly thereafter, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema stepped in and inked a new deal with the Embracer Group to produce a whole new slate of movies based on those books (meaning adaptations of The Silmarillion or Tolkien’s other writings are not possible under the terms of that particular deal).

Moreover, shortly after the news of Warner Bros.’s new deal broke, Peter Jackson himself revealed that both they and the Embracer Group “have kept us in the loop every step of the way”, hinting at the possibility of his continued involvement in their corner of the franchise.

Meanwhile, the Tolkien estate itself still holds the rights to adapt Tolkien’s other writings, including the material contained in the Lord of the Rings appendices – which is what Amazon bought the rights to in order to make Rings of Power.

With 2024 shaping up to be a battle for Middle Earth, it will be interesting to see what the future has in store for the franchise once the dust has settled.

Meanwhile, be sure to come and say hello to one of Thorin’s companions, when Bombur’s Stephen Hunter joins us at Supanova in Melbourne (6-7 April).