Stephen Colbert is working on the next (next) Lord of the Rings movie — and Tom Bombadil finally makes an appearance

Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show may be coming to an end in a couple of months, but the talk show host is possibly going onto bigger and better things. He’s one of the lead writers of an upcoming The Lord of the Rings movie.

Colbert has teased the film will be titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, and it’s based on the events leading up to the Fogs on the Barrow-downs chapter of the first The Lord of the Rings book. This part is largely left out of the films, and is famously the section of Tolkien’s yarn that features Tom Bombadil.

Frodo, Merry and Pippin are on their way by this point, but end up facing off against a Barrow-wight, an undead nasty.

“That is not the only Tolkien movie we’re developing,”Peter Jackson said as part of a video message announcing the movie, which initially talked about the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.

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“You know what the books mean to me… the things I found myself reading over and over again were the first six chapters in Fellowship that were never developed into the movie,” says Colbert in conversation with Jackson.

“It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did, you liked it enough to talk to me about it. And ever since the two of us have been working with the brilliant Philippa Boyens on how to develop the story.”

Boyens was a writer on the three original Thee Lord of the Rings movies from the early 2000s, as well as The Hobbit adaptations. The other listed writer is Peter McGee, Colbert’s son.

The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past will follow The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which itself is not due out until December 17th, 2027. We definitely have a wait on for this one, but it comes with fortuitous timing for Colbert.

The last episode of his Late Show with CBS is on May 21st, which Colbert joked now gives him plenty of time to work on the film.

While mostly known as a celebrity figure and TV host, Colbert has also worked on the writing team of numerous movies and TV shows — although unsurprisingly those with more of a comedy bent than The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is likely to have.

• It’s about time! Lord of the Rings fans rejoice as Gollum film gets release date

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