Overview
- Warner Bros. and New Line are developing The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, written by Stephen Colbert with Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee.
- The story is set about 14 years after The Return of the King and follows Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Sam’s daughter Elanor in the Shire.
- Reporting says the film will use a present-day frame with flashbacks to chapters from The Fellowship of the Ring that were not filmed, including the Barrow-wights sequence.
- Supporters frame the premise as a natural handoff to Sam’s life after the quest, while some fans warn a sequel could undercut the trilogy’s ending.
- Coverage sets the move against J.R.R. Tolkien’s own abandoned sequel, The New Shadow, a 13-page fragment set a century later that he called too grim and not worth finishing.