Did you know there’s a new Lord of the Rings movie coming out this year? There is, and a trailer for it has just been released.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is no Rings of Power spin-off, though. It’s an animated movie that, contrary to the current trend, is coming to cinemas later this year.
It’s set around 200 years before the events of the classic Lord of the Rings trilogy, based around the King of Rohan and the battle that formed the Middle-Earth we know from the main novels and movies.
The literary base for this story is content from the appendices of the Lord of the Rings novels, which mention Helm Hammerhand, the ninth King of Rohan.
He’s played by Brian Cox, which seems spot-on casting for the role.
Other cast members include Miranda Otto as the narrator, playing Eowyn as she does in the old Lord of the Rings films, and Gaia Wise as Hera.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is directed by Kenji Kamiyama, a veteran of Japanese animation. He directed Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Star Wars: Visions, and even worked as an artist on Akira and Kiki’s Delivery Service.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a pretty heft animation too, clocking in at 130 minutes.
The film was announced in June 2021, as a movie about Helm’s Deep. It’s a standalone story but, of course, will always be viewed in the context of the classic LoTR tale.
Its best personnel link to the classic movies is probably Philippa Boyens, a producer on The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim who was part of the writing team on the original trilogy of films, and the Hobbit trilogy.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will come to cinemas in the US on December 13, while it will open in some other countries a couple of days earlier on December 11.
