Producers of “Lord of the Rings” announce several films at once

Fans of “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” can look forward to new footage from Middle-earth. The American production company New Line Cinema, in collaboration with the Embracer Group, wants to bring more stories from the literary world of JRR Tolkien to the big screen. Warner Bros., the parent company of New Line, together with the Embracer Group, announced this on Thursday (local time).

Swedish games group Embracer acquired Middle-earth Enterprises last year and has since owned the film rights to the literary work on “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” the Hollywood Reporter reports. New Line had already co-produced the Sagas, each of which was released as a trilogy from 2001 to 2014 to great acclaim.

It is still unknown which storylines or characters could be the focus of new productions. Looking at the existing films, Warner Bros said, “The vast, complex and dazzling universe JRR Tolkien dreamed of is still largely unexplored as a film.” The boss of Embracer’s production company Freecode, Lee Guinchard, promised a “new and exciting way” to bring Tolkien’s literature back to the screen.

The TV rights are still with the American multinational Amazon. The Prime streaming service aired the first season of its Middle-earth series “The Rings of Power” in 2022. The content is set as a prehistory several thousand years before the events of the “Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Even though the reviews were mixed at the start of the expensive production, the second season is already in the works. (sda/dpa)