Lord Of The Rings fans surprised with new movie dropping this week

Lord of the Rings fans can enjoy a new film coming to streaming this week, two months after its release in cinemas.

The Lord of the Rings universe is massive, with plenty of stories in the original Tolkien mythos left to be adapted for the screen.

While another season of Amazon’s The Rings of Power is on the way, the series has had an iffy reception so far. Similarly, video games set in the Middle-earth franchise have also been a bit of a mixed bag.

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy is considered one of the best film trilogies of all time.

The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim released in cinemas last December, and is no such outlier either. The animated film currently sits at 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, giving it a Rotten rating.

Set nearly 200 years before The Hobbit, it tells the legendary tale of Rohan king Helm Hammerhand and his daughter Héra, who go to war against an army of Dunlendings.

Fans of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films will notice some references here. The locations are based on their appearance in Jackson’s trilogy, and characters like Eowyn and Saruman make small cameos.

Directed by Kenji Kamiyama, most famous for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the cast includes the likes of Brian Cox, Miranda Otto, Gaia Wise, and Luke Pasqualino.

As confirmed by Deadline, War of the Rohirrim will be streaming on Max on 28 February, or this Friday. It’ll also premiere on HBO on 1 March at 8pm ET.

If the middling Rotten Tomatoes score puts you off, we should note that our own Richard Breslin enjoyed the film, stating in his review: “The War of the Rohirrim is every bit the adaptation that I hoped it would be, and then some.”

While a sequel to War of the Rohirrim is unlikely, more films in set in Middle-earth are on the way. The franchise will be returning to live action with the release of two new films.

The first of these films, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, will be directed by Andy Serkis and is expected to be released in 2026. However, no further details have been revealed at this time.