Overview
- Peter Jackson said at Cannes on Thursday that Stephen Colbert pitched and is co-writing The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
- Jackson connected Colbert with veteran Rings writer Philippa Boyens, and Colbert is also writing with his son Peter McGee.
- The team spent about a year developing a treatment, with Colbert traveling to New Zealand to work alongside Jackson’s collaborators.
- The film draws on Fellowship chapters the earlier movies skipped, including the Barrow-downs sequence and the character Tom Bombadil.
- Warner Bros. plans to release it after Andy Serkis’s The Hunt for Gollum in 2027, and Jackson said the project gave Colbert focus as The Late Show ends May 21.