It’s a good time to be a Lord of the Rings fan. Not only is the fantasy series getting a new live action TV series and an upcoming video game, but it will soon see a new animated feature film. New Line Cinema, which produced the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies directed by Peter Jackson, has partnered with Warner Bros. Animation for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s second Lord of the Rings novel, The Two Towers, the fellowship travels to the fortress of Helm’s Deep. Named after Helm Hammerhand, the fortress helps to defend the Rohirrim, inhabitants of Rohan. The anime feature will reportedly focus on Helm’s war, which takes place a couple hundred years before the events of the novel.
Variety reports that Kenji Kamiyama will direct the movie, with a screenplay by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Mathews. Reportedly, trilogy director Peter Jackson is not involved as of yet, although screenwriter Philippa Boyens will consult on it. The anime movie will not tie in to the aforementioned Amazon series, which takes place many years prior in the Middle Earth timeline. But it will still connect to the Lord of the Rings movies.
If you’re looking forward to all the upcoming Lord of the Rings adaptations but want one you can enjoy now, a Soviet-made film version of the first novel recently resurfaced online. War of the Rohirrim won’t be the first animated version of the novels, as Ralph Bakshi directed an animated Lord of the Rings in 1978. However, it will be the first anime adaptation. Kenji Kamiyama previously directed the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
