Lord of The Rings Sequel Film Announced, Original Characters Involved

The Lord of the Rings is soon set to make a comeback in a major way.

Already, a live-action prequel is in the works; The Hunt For Gollum is due to be released in 2027, with Gollum actor Andy Serkis also on directing duties. Peter Jackson, the auteur of the original trilogy, returns as a producer.

It's since been revealed that a live-action sequel is also now in production, featuring several returning characters from that famed original trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is set to enter production after The Hunt For Gollum and will be co-written, Warner Bros. has revealed, by none other than late night talk show host Stephen Colbert.

Colbert is sharing writing duties with his son Peter McGee and franchise veteran Philippa Boyens - the latter of whom is also working on The Hunt For Gollum.

If you didn't know, Colbert previously revealed that he'd be stepping away from his talk show in May 2026. Clearly, we now know what he'll do with his newfound sense of freedom.

Sam, Merry, Pippin, And Elanor Are All Confirmed To Be Returning

"Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo - Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure," a synopsis of Shadow of the Past reads.

"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."

As you've perhaps picked up, Shadow of the Past is due to feature several returning faces which'll definitely prompt questions over whether we could also see the original cast return.

It's plausible. Shadow of the Past is set 14 years after Frodo's death, which is believed to have taken place a couple of years after the events of The Return of the King.

New Line Cinema

That means those original actors would need to look somewhere in the region of 17 to 20 years older than they did last time. The Return of the King launched in 2003, 23 years ago, so we're not exactly far off. Producers could opt to recast, however.

While revealing the film, writer Colbert explained that the idea for Shadow of the Past came from several chapters of Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring that didn't make it into Peter Jackson's film adaptation, so you might want to go and read the original text to see where things could be heading.

“You know what the books mean to me, and what your films mean to me,” Colbert said in a video posted by Warner Bros.

“But the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in [The Fellowship of the Ring] that ya’ll never developed into the first movie back in the day.

"It’s basically the chapter ‘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?'”

An exciting new era is now well underway for the franchise.