Middle-earth (New Line Cinema series)

Some previous adaptations of Middle-earth encompassed multiple entries: Rankin-Bass produced two related television specials, one based on The Hobbit and one based on The Return of the King. While Ralph Bakshi was unable to produce part two of his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, producer Saul Zaentz was able to license the movie's visuals to any number of tie-in products for years to come. Two of its cast members also reprised their roles in the otherwise-unrelated 1981 radio serial. Bakshi's film and Sibley's radio serial, along with the original novel, were known to the adolescent Peter Jackson. Years later, while discussing an earlier "Tolkien-esque" fantasy script for Blubberhead, Jackson decided to pivot to adapting The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This proposition, originally a trilogy pitched to Miramax circa 1995, would eventually become an eight film series — all the intellectual property of New Line Cinema with whom Jackson would produce the films — and a plethora of tie-in projects.

Due to the complicated rights situation involving The Hobbit, Jackson ended up proceeding in February 1997 with The Lord of the Rings. During development, the project oscillated between as little as a single two-hour film and as many as three films, before moving to New Line Cinema where it was greenlit as a trilogy, which was released annually beginning in December 2001. The extended edition of the third and final film was released in 2004. The commercial and critical success of those films paved the way for future entries.

The rights to The Hobbit were split between Saul Zaentz (who had previously leased the Lord of the Rings rights to New Line) and Metro Goldwyn Mayer. This rights dispute and other disputes like it delayed development on The Hobbit, initially to 2008 with Jackson picking Guillermo del Toro to direct, then to 2011 with del Toro departing due to the delay and Jackson, being the film's producer, taking over. Again the project oscillated between two films, the second of which would primarily be a bridge to The Lord of the Rings, to as many as three films dedicated to The Hobbit proper. This latter option was only decided upon in the concluding phase of the shoot, resulting in three films released starting in November 2012. The final extended edition was released in November 2015, exactly twenty years after Jackson first considered the idea. Though not matching the critical acclaim of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit was a substantial commercial success, leaving the door open to future films.

In 2019, Jackson had been working with New Line Cinema on returning to Middle-earth via the medium of animation. The project failed to materialize before Jackson and co-writer Philippa Boyens pivoted to the story of Helm Hammerhand. To retain the lease on the rights from Zaentz' estate, the film was fast-tracked for release in 2024.

Although animated in Japan under director Kenji Kamiyama, the connection to the preceding films is made overt through retaining the look of the various Rohan locales, as well as bringing back characters and their actors in voiceover roles: Jackson was attached as executive producer, while co-writer Philippa Boyens co-wrote the story and produced the entire film. It was the first commercially unsuccessful entry in the series, but since it was done on a low budget, didn't hinder the filmmakers' interest in exploring more material for the series.

Jackson's original idea to adapt events set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as part of their adaptation of The Hobbit, was to return in the guise of The Hunt for Gollum. The film is set to start filming in May 2026, ahead of release in December 2027. As with The War of the Rohirrim, this is not directed by Jackson but by Andy Serkis who, besides being a member of Jackson's cast, had also directed second-unit on the preceding films under Jackson's baton. Several cast and crew members are already attached to return for the project.

The Hunt for Gollum was greenlit with the intention of spearheading a slate of new films based on Tolkien's works as interpreted by Jackson. Indeed, Jackson is himself contracted for a second film whose subject matter — Young Aragorn, the War in the North and other topics have all been proposed — remains undisclosed. After that, co-writer Philippa Boyens had spoken of the potential for more standalone stories, including the potential for another "epic trilogy." This latter comment probably refers to the Angmar war.

Individual films and trilogies have been adapted into video games, tabletop games, and other products. Some long-running licensed products explicitly refer to the series as a whole, such as the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game.

Some games adapted book characters well before the films got to them. Games Workshop depicted Sauron as the Necromancer before the release of The Hobbit films. Likewise, the The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game depicted Radagast before he featured in the same films. Both depictions are different from their later film appearance. The game series Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, while being licensed from would, ended up contradicting the later film War of the Rohirrim through the creative liberties the game series took with Helm Hammerhand.

Besides direct tie-ins, the sheer expanse of Jackson's and New Line's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings is such that it takes little imagination to relate to most other Tolkien-related projects: members of Jackson's cast have narrated Tolkien audiobooks, video-games unrelated to the film series (e.g. Return to Moria) and even hosted documentaries about the author (Graham McTavish having narrated "Inside Tolkien's Lord of the Rings"). Jackson had relied on the services of people who had previously worked on academic research into Lord of the Rings (Tom Shippey, David Salo and Jannet Brennan-Croft), book illustrations (John Howe and Alan Lee) and other adaptations (Brian Sibley, having adapted the book to radio), and these all resumed their Tolkienian occupations after or between productions. Other members of his crew worked on anything from the Tolkien biopic, parodies like Darrylgorn and Throbbit, and especially the first season of Rings of Power.

Some of these projects attempted to relate themselves to the films after the manner of a so-called "spiritual prequel." This is especially true of Rings of Power, particularly the first season. New Line Cinema is a "minority licensee" on the show, and had an accord of sorts with Amazon Prime Video during production on Season One. During that season, Weta had designed a Narsil and Aeglos very similar to their film design, while WetaFX had designed Durin's Bane along very similar line to the one seen in Jackson's film. Elsewhere, the dissimilarities are however substantial enough that the project cannot be rigorously considered part of Jackson's oeuvre.

Category:Films

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