With “The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power” chugging along its five-season commitment at Amazon Prime Video. a new live-action movie in the works at New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. with Andy Serkis reprising the Gollum role and taking on directing duties (after handling second unit directing on “The Hobbit” films) that takes place before the events of “The Fellowship of The Rings,” and a second mysterious pic that was dismissed as a second part to “The Hunt For Gollum.” Even more Middle-Earth tales could be coming to beyond all that if audiences are keen for it.

Rodrigo Perez of The Playlist recently spoke with Philippa Boyens (“Lord of The Rings” & “The Hobbit” trilogies), co-writer and producer of the feature film franchise and the new anime film “The Lord of The Rings: The War of The Rohirrim,” and she revealed that more anime adaptations could be on the table.

“There’s a lot of [possibilities], when you look at it, there’s a lot of things in there, actually,” Boyens told The Playlist about adapting more Middle-Earth stories using the medium of anime. “One of the things this [‘War of The Rohirrim’] story has shown us is that a stand-alone story works really successfully within the world of Middle-earth and I would genuinely—because I’ve fallen in love with the form—love to see another anime. But that depends on the audiences out there, your audience, fans of not only the original trilogy but that vast anime audience. I’m really interested to see what they think.”

That’s certainly a positive update from Boyens about future adaptations and should give fans/audiences a bit of hope that everyone involved seems to be invested in more Middle-Earth projects for years to come. Given the appendices allows for more stories to tell, they don’t seem to be short on ideas.

I had personally heard that the producing team was mulling over more anime adaptations, but the studio (that bankrolls projects) would specifically need to see a decent reaction to their animation experiment with “Rohirrim” before making any official announcements. Given the talk that “Rohirrim” was made for under $100 million, there is certainly wiggle room for the film over the holiday season and new year to hit a box office target needed to make the studio/producers comfortable enough with subsequent releases.

Some might remember that “Furiosa,” the “Mad Max: Fury Road” prequel released earlier in the year by Warner Bros., was originally planned as an anime film, but was reworked as a live-action one in the end. There is a chance that if “Rohirrim” is successful enough more than Tolkien’s adventures could be used in the medium, but also George Miller’s third “Wasteland” epic could be told in that way as well.

“The War of The Rohirrim” directed by Kenji Kamiyama is heading exclusively to theaters on December 13, and “The Hunt For Gollum” is expected to be ready sometime in 2026 (an actual date has yet to be announced by the studio).

SOURCE: THE PLAYLIST