Nobody’s going to argue that Peter Jackson delivered one of the greatest trilogies cinema is ever going to see with The Lord of the Rings, but there’s a heavy air of a dead horse being flogged after both Warner Bros. and Amazon have committed to an avalanche of new content.
Never mind the fact The Hobbit trilogy was vastly inferior to its illustrious forebear, or that The Rings of Power came under sustained criticism for its entire run, nor the obvious point to make that not a single soul was asking for a brand new set of blockbusters set in Middle-earth, we’re getting it anyway whether we want it or not.
Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav has basically admitted to being a slut for IP, which makes the internet’s new craze of memeing Lord of the Rings origin stories all the more terrifying; because there’s a distinct possibility that at least a handful of the far-fetched suggestions will turn out to be right on the money.
What stories are there left to tell outside of adapting The Silmarillion that would even hook non-Tolkien fans, anyway? Warner Bros. doesn’t care, nor does it even dare to hazard a guess. All we know is that something is brewing in the fires of the studio’s developmental Mount Doom, and it’ll no doubt ride a wave of backlash and apathy all the way to the big screen.
Of course, we could all be proven wrong when The Lord of the Rings reignites as one of the biggest blockbuster behemoths on the planet, but when the people in charge have been so open in confirming plans to franchise the ever-loving sh*t out of every marketable property in the back catalogue, then it’s hard to get excited.