Fantasy New Lord of the Rings movies in the works

[Zantera]

Considering how vocal Viggo has been about his dislike for what the LOTR movies turned into (especially Return of the King) it would seriously surprise me if he signed on in any capacity for this legacy cash grab. But I guess stranger things have happened and if they drive a dump truck of money to his house maybe he would say yes? But he seems like an "integrity above all else" type of actor and he'll have more interesting movie projects to choose from.

 

[Filmfreak]

The de-aging worries me because I don't think the tech is there yet. But would there be other ways to make Viggo look younger? I don't think they're gonna recast.

There's always the cheap and trustworthy Saw method. Aragorn wearing a baseball cap in reverse.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Yeah, Viggo ain’t so much a “sequel” guy. I can’t see him agreeing to put dots on his face for a shoot especially considering his averse to big budget and CGI.

Viggo Mortensen Criticizes Peter Jackson, CGI and The Hobbit - IGN

Aragorn himself, actor Viggo Mortensen, made some pretty candid statements about Peter Jackson's tenure in Middle-earth.

www.ign.com

I mean, unless Andy Serkis was like, we’re making this a gritty 20M art house picture lol

In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10."

 

[Drizzle]

Yeah, Viggo ain’t so much a “sequel” guy. I can’t see him agreeing to put dots on his face for a shoot especially considering his averse to big budget and CGI.

Viggo Mortensen Criticizes Peter Jackson, CGI and The Hobbit - IGN

Aragorn himself, actor Viggo Mortensen, made some pretty candid statements about Peter Jackson's tenure in Middle-earth.

www.ign.com

I mean, unless Andy Serkis was like, we’re making this a gritty 20M art house picture lol

Viggo definitely had points about the Hobbit movies but I disagree his criticism about TTT and ROTK. There was no way to do those movies without extensive special effects and there were still plenty of location shots throughout them anyway.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Viggo definitely had points about the Hobbit movies but I disagree his criticism about TTT and ROTK. There was no way to do those movies without extensive special effects and there were still plenty of location shots throughout them anyway.

Agreed. But if he had a problem with that there’s no reason to think he’d be Ok with being de-aged acting with dots on his face. He’d never agree.

 

[Drizzle]

Agreed. But if he had a problem with that there’s no reason to think he’d be Ok with being de-aged acting with dots on his face. He’d never agree.

Oh for sure. Even if he were okay with it I don't know how I'd feel about watching a movie with a de-aged Viggo as Aragorn. I thought the tech worked well enough for Harrison Ford in Dial of Destiny, for me the biggest distraction there was the voice of an 80-year old Ford coming from an Indy who was half that age. By comparison, Viggo's voice doesn't sound too different now compared to 20 years ago but again, he'd probably never want to do it.

And as you said earlier in this thread, I can live with a recast Aragorn. A recast Gandalf would be a much tougher sell.

 

[sueb1863]

Viggo makes some good points, although I agree that PJ didn't have much choice in TTT and RotK. But the Hobbit movies definitely suffered massively from bloat and CGI.

Didn't they use adhesive tape to tape back Ian Holmes' face in the opening of Fellowship so he'd look younger in the scene where Bilbo finds the ring in Gollum's cave? Maybe they could just get some jumbo rolls of Scotch tape and do that with Viggo. Save a bunch on CGI!!

 

[Iceman]

Oh for sure. Even if he were okay with it I don't know how I'd feel about watching a movie with a de-aged Viggo as Aragorn. I thought the tech worked well enough for Harrison Ford in Dial of Destiny, for me the biggest distraction there was the voice of an 80-year old Ford coming from an Indy who was half that age. By comparison, Viggo's voice doesn't sound too different now compared to 20 years ago but again, he'd probably never want to do it.

And as you said earlier in this thread, I can live with a recast Aragorn. A recast Gandalf would be a much tougher sell.

The voice was really jarring for me. Need a way to have that match the visual and then I think it can work (SLJ in CM worked for me). Ideally I’d only want deaging tech for a flashback scene here and there like we got with RDJ rather than being used for a character throughout a whole movie.

 

[Drizzle]

The voice was really jarring for me. Need a way to have that match the visual and then I think it can work (SLJ in CM worked for me). Ideally I’d only want deaging tech for a flashback scene here and there like we got with RDJ rather than being used for a character throughout a whole movie.

Same, admittedly I always forget about Samuel L. Jackson's de-aging in Captain Marvel because the man hadn't changed much in 25 years both in appearance and voice so it was less noticeable.

 

[psylockolussus]

Fantastic Rings and Where to Find Them

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Boom]

“We have the right to the Lord of the Rings and the appendices, and that’s it,” Boyens said. “I would love to see that expand if there was the opportunity to do so, but there is so much that is in those three books. I know that especially hardcore fans of Professor Tolkien, they always get nervous that there’s only so much story. But look at War of the Rohirrim. It’s a page and a half at first glance in the books. But there are lots of threads throughout the book.

*Clears throat*
*Adjusts collar*
*Inhales deeply*

THE WAR OF THE LAST ALLIANCE.
THE ANGMAR WAR.
THE OATH OF EORL.
THE BATTLE OF DALE.

 

[InCali]

*Clears throat*
*Adjusts collar*
*Inhales deeply*

THE WAR OF THE LAST ALLIANCE.
THE ANGMAR WAR.
THE OATH OF EORL.
THE BATTLE OF DALE.

The War of the Last Alliance would be cool.....(clears throat also).....you just need something of an accurate depiction of the 2nd age to set it up.....still waiting......

The Angmar War would be cool. Arvedui claiming the crown (and being denied) and his not listening to the Snowmen of Forochel (Lossoth). The defeat of the Witch King at the hands of Glorfindel and Earnur. And, Earnur going all Boromir on us and getting his ass killed....

The story of Eorl would also be really cool and I'd especially be entranced by Galadriel helping their ride and defeating Sauron.

Dale would be the least interesting to me (but still interesting)....but if there's going to be a battle in a dale, I'd take the Dimrill Dale and the Battle of Azanulbizar.....that could be so freaking cool.....

Why can't anyone seem to do this S*** right?

 

[Boom]

The War of the Last Alliance would be cool.....(clears throat also).....you just need something of an accurate depiction of the 2nd age to set it up.....still waiting......

The Angmar War would be cool. Arvedui claiming the crown (and being denied) and his not listening to the Snowmen of Forochel (Lossoth). The defeat of the Witch King at the hands of Glorfindel and Earnur. And, Earnur going all Boromir on us and getting his ass killed....

The story of Eorl would also be really cool and I'd especially be entranced by Galadriel helping their ride and defeating Sauron.

Dale would be the least interesting to me (but still interesting)....but if there's going to be a battle in a dale, I'd take the Dimrill Dale and the Battle of Azanulbizar.....that could be so freaking cool.....

Why can't anyone seem to do this S*** right?

Regarding The War of the Last Alliance, I think a prologue would suffice. All that really needs to be shown is that Sauron went to Númenor and wrecked ****, and then Elendil and his people fled to Middle-earth and established the Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Cue Sauron wrecking more ****.

I just don't know if the agreement between Amazon and the Tolkien Estate complicates this. But the way it's presented in the Deadline article, it sounds to me that WBD and Embracer Group have access to The Lord of the Rings and its Appendices and they can do whatever they want with the material therein. That would include the Second Age material. So unless there's a legal wrinkle to this that I'm not seeing, I don't see why WBD couldn't beat Amazon to the punch with the Last Alliance. And that assumes that Rings of Power even lasts long enough to get there.

My concern is that they are making the exact same mistake that Disney made with Star Wars by leaning on "new stories" with legacy characters. This approach does not grow the IP in a meaningful way. You're simply adding pillows to what's already there. The more you focus on stories with the same recurring group of characters, the more you shrink the world.

Sure, it's risky promoting a new "Lord of the Rings" movie without Gandalf and Aragorn and Gollum. But that's also the only way you're going to tap the true potential of the IP and build it out even beyond what you originally thought was possible.

 

[InCali]

Regarding The War of the Last Alliance, I think a prologue would suffice. All that really needs to be shown is that Sauron went to Númenor and wrecked ****, and then Elendil and his people fled to Middle-earth and established the Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Cue Sauron wrecking more ****.

I just don't know if the agreement between Amazon and the Tolkien Estate complicates this. But the way it's presented in the Deadline article, it sounds to me that WBD and Embracer Group have access to The Lord of the Rings and its Appendices and they can do whatever they want with the material therein. That would include the Second Age material. So unless there's a legal wrinkle to this that I'm not seeing, I don't see why WBD couldn't beat Amazon to the punch with the Last Alliance. And that assumes that Rings of Power even lasts long enough to get there.

My concern is that they are making the exact same mistake that Disney made with Star Wars by leaning on "new stories" with legacy characters. This approach does not grow the IP in a meaningful way. You're simply adding pillows to what's already there. The more you focus on stories with the same recurring group of characters, the more you shrink the world.

Sure, it's risky promoting a new "Lord of the Rings" movie without Gandalf and Aragorn and Gollum. But that's also the only way you're going to tap the true potential of the IP and build it out even beyond what you originally thought was possible.

The thing that frustrates me about RoP is that I'm a total Tolkien nerd and want to see the stories; not some made up Bull S*** that doesn't even follow what's laid out in the appendices. There's plenty of room to fill in, but having Galadriel jump off a ship near the end of the 2nd age, but taken to Numenor where Elendil is hanging out, pisses me off to no end.

Whew......glad I got that out. LOL

 

[DarkKnight88]

I do like to hear that Andy Serkis is going to make this his own. So that the film will probably have a weird POV to it coming from Gollum. There’s plenty of ways to get artistic and fresh with that.

This could actually be visually and tone its own thing we’ve never seen before with Middle Earth as the backdrop.

 

[Spider-Fan]

It won't be inventive like that. This is all just going to be content for the sake of IP exploitation

 

[Arnold Rimmer]

I actually have a question about the original books and movies that I never understood:

the events of FOTR and TTT make it look like Sauron and Saruman are working together to squeeze Rohan and Gondor on both ends which is a solid strategy.......and yet Tolkien purists and others keep insisting "Oh no, Saruman wasn't working for Saruman! He just make his own Orc army out of fear and is doing his own thing in an attempted eventual civil war." Could've ****ing fooled me. The movies made it look very clear those 2 were in league. We even see Sauron tell the latter "Build me an army worthy of Mordor"! So how the blue hell could Saruman be playing both ends in a way that would've clearly never had panned out and just gotten him and his army killed by Sauron? I call bull**** on this claim.

 

[Boom]

I actually have a question about the original books and movies that I never understood:

the events of FOTR and TTT make it look like Sauron and Saruman are working together to squeeze Rohan and Gondor on both ends which is a solid strategy.......and yet Tolkien purists and others keep insisting "Oh no, Saruman wasn't working for Saruman! He just make his own Orc army out of fear and is doing his own thing in an attempted eventual civil war." Could've ****ing fooled me. The movies made it look very clear those 2 were in league. We even see Sauron tell the latter "Build me an army worthy of Mordor"! So how the blue hell could Saruman be playing both ends in a way that would've clearly never had panned out and just gotten him and his army killed by Sauron? I call bull**** on this claim.

Saruman's allegiance to Sauron was more about self preservation. He had every intention of finding and claiming the One Ring for himself and overthrowing Sauron.

 

[Arnold Rimmer]

Saruman's allegiance to Sauron was more about self preservation. He had every intention of finding and claiming the One Ring for himself and overthrowing Sauron.

Fat chance, since the Ring was nowhere near him after the first movie.

 

[Boom]

Fat chance, since the Ring was nowhere near him after the first movie.

He instructed his Uruk-Hai to bring back Halflings to Isengard. He knew the Ring was in the hands of a Halfling.

 

[Lily Adler]

Considering how vocal Viggo has been about his dislike for what the LOTR movies turned into (especially Return of the King) it would seriously surprise me if he signed on in any capacity for this legacy cash grab. But I guess stranger things have happened and if they drive a dump truck of money to his house maybe he would say yes? But he seems like an "integrity above all else" type of actor and he'll have more interesting movie projects to choose from.

The man hurt himself while shooting those films, so he's clearly biased.

 

[Arnold Rimmer]

He instructed his Uruk-Hai to bring back Halflings to Isengard. He knew the Ring was in the hands of a Halfling.

Yes, I remember. I thought it was to give to Sauron.

And even then, wrong Hobbits! He knew there were 4 of them!

 

[Boom]

Yes, I remember. I thought it was to give to Sauron.

And even then, wrong Hobbits! He knew there were 4 of them!

I don't know what to tell you. In the book, it is made explicitly clear that Saruman is after the Ring for himself. If you're talking strictly about the movies, then sure I suppose it's up to interpretation on whether he was serving Sauron or himself.

 

[Drizzle]

The man hurt himself while shooting those films, so he's clearly biased.