Stephen Colbert‘s career has had some wonderfully unexpected twists. Colbert got his first big break on the short-lived The Dana Carvey Show before becoming a correspondent on The Daily Show. Eventually, he’d land his own program and take over The Late Show.
Now, he’s working on perhaps his biggest gig yet, writing a Lord of the Rings film.
Stephen Colbert: Tolkien Superfan
It’s funny to think that a writing job would be the crowning achievement of a TV host’s career, but Colbert is a unique soul. It’s well known that Colbert is a massive fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and his Middle-earth saga. Colbert is so well-versed in the world that he can toss out quotes from the books whenever necessary.
Tuesday night, Colbert dropped some bombshell news on social media. He noted that the first six chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring were never adapted into a film. As Colbert puts it, “It’s basically chapters ‘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.'”
A Story in the Making
This brought Stephen and his son Peter together to start writing this, in addition to a framing device for how to address the missing part of the story. Colbert presented this to The Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson. Jackson apparently liked the idea, and Colbert has been fleshing it out further with Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee.
The official synopsis reads, “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. 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.
Currently, there’s a Lord of the Rings film arriving in the form of Lord of the Rings: Hunt for Gollum. This next story, with the working title “The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past,” is potentially set to follow it up. No casting news or release dates have been announced. We’ll update you with more information as the project develops.
This is extremely exciting news for Colbert, though. With The Late Show being unceremoniously cancelled by CBS, this will certainly help his spirits bounce back up. Hopefully it will bounce our’s up too!
