Lord of the Rings made headlines last week after the CEO of Warner Bros., David Zaslav, announced that the production company would be expanding the franchise by releasing more films.
The premise of Lord of the Rings, inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels of the same name, follows the adventures of Frodo (Elijah Wood) and a group of individuals as they venture out to destroy the one ring to prevent Sauron from causing havoc to Middle Earth.
This trilogy was respectively released from 2001 to 2003 and generated over $2 billion worldwide. The success of the Lord of the Rings franchise spawned a prequel spinoff, The Hobbit, and most recently, the divisive television series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
As the news circulated online surrounding the upcoming projects, Reddit user @u/chiverybob responded by expressing their frustrations with Warner Bros.’ trying to “defile” the franchise by adding more films. The social media user uploaded a meme and a caption with the Spongebob character Mr. Krabs, known for his love of money, disguised as the company’s logo and contemplating if he should dig the Lord of the Rings‘ grave and mess up the peaceful conclusion it deserves.
But the caption aptly highlights the very reason Warner Bros. is happy to besmirch the franchise’s reputation, “Am I going to defile this grave for money? Of course, I am.”
Following the viral post, many Reddit users voiced their opinions about @u/chiverybob’s stance on Warner Bros. making more Lord of the Rings films.
One person expressed that despite the social media user’s sentiments on Warner Bros. decision, nothing about the Lord of Rings franchise or its’ legacy is being “defiled” because the history it made isn’t “going anywhere. “
At the same time, another Reddit user agreed with the meme’s overall message.
A third individual went as far as to suggest that the Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, should have never made the trilogy.
Another social media user is much more optimistic as they requested that the upcoming films should bring back specific characters in Tolkien’s books and aim for a more authentic adaptation.
So far, no additional details regarding the new Lord of the Rings movies have been released to the public. But the news of them being on the way has been enough to trigger a fresh wave of debate about the franchise’s past, present, and future.