Amazon’s The Rings of Power is getting all the attention, but more Middle-earth is on the horizon. Warner Bros. Animation and New Line Cinema have announced the release date for their standalone anime film Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim: April 12, 2024.
Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus) directs the film, which has as an executive producer Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. Joseph Chou’s anime studio Sola Entertainment (Ultraman, Blade Runner: Black Lotus) is producing.
Boyens’ daughter, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou are writing the screenplay (which Variety notes is based on a script by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews). Three key players in Jackson’s movies are also on board: Richard Taylor (an Oscar winner for makeup and visual effects), and artists Alan Lee and John Howe.
The War of the Rohirrim is set about 200 years before The Hobbit, and tells the story of Helm Hammerhand, the ninth king of Rohan and the man for whom Helm’s Deep was named. Hammerhand spent most of his reign at war and was the last king of his line, so presumably the film is not going to have a super upbeat story.
Voice casting is expected to be announced soon—and then we’ll just sit back and wait two years for the riders to arrive.
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