Stephen Colbert’s time as a late night host is coming to an end, but he already has his next gig lined up. It’s a job he’s been training for his whole life. The Lord of the Rings expert and superfan will write the franchise’s next big screen tale. Right now, the film’s working title is The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
With The Late Show ending (under questionable circumstances) on May 21, it was unclear what Stephen Colbert would do next. Now we know after Warner Bros. posted a video from Peter Jackson to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day. In the video Jackson provided updates on Andy Serkis’ film The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is currently in pre-production.
Jackson then welcomed in Colbert via video chat to share some unexpected but very welcome news. The soon-to-be ex talk show host will co-write an adaptation of the early chapters from The Fellowship of the Ring, an idea he and his son have thought about for years. Colbert will write it with Philippa Boyens and his son, Peter McGee.
Here’s what Colbert said about how this happened and what he is hoping to do with his film.
The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically chapters ‘Three Is Company’ through ‘Fog on the Barrow-downs.’ And 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?’
You know what that means, right? Another live-action Tom Bombadil. And here’s a synopsis for the film:
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.
Colbert said it took him “a few years to scrape” together the courage to reach out to Jackson with his idea. He then finally did two years ago. So clearly this has been an idea a long time in the making. And that’s without factoring in his lifetime obsession with the books.
Now Colbert actually has the time to write this script. We don’t like why that’s the case. But at least a very bad thing is making this very good thing possible.