Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was Middle-earth, but unlike Ancient Rome, J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy realm is still growing. Prime Video’s The Rings of Power continues to explore the Second Age. Andy Serkis is currently directing The Hunt for Gollum for the big screen. And Stephen Colbert has already lined up his next project after his run on The Late Show ends. He’s penning his own The Lord of the Rings movie. We knew the comedian pitched the idea long before he was fired by CBS. But Peter Jackson has revealed just how much work they did before CBS fired Colbert. Jackson said they’ve already worked on it for a year.
Jackson gave Variety some more insight into his collaboration with Colbert while attending this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which is honoring Jackson with its presitiguous Palme d’Or award. The legendary director said Colbert first called him about a movie idea based on three The Fellowship of the Ring chapters—“Three Is Company’ through “Fog on the Barrow-downs”—well before Colbert learned about his show’s cancellation. That lines up with what Colbert said previously. The idea is even older, as the talk show host said it took him a long time to work up the courage to call Jackson. But what we didn’t know was just how much work the two have already done on the movie.
Jackson said him and Colbert, along with Jackson’s long-time Middle-earth co-writer Philippa Boyens, spent a year working together on a treatment. Colbert even went to New Zealand as part of the process.
Now he’ll have a lot more time to work on it. We’re not happy about the reason why. But we’re happy that he’s not starting from scratch. Movies set in Middle-earth take a long time to make. Certainly way more than a single day.