Blatant Cash Grab: Fans Make It Clear Where They Stand on New LotR Movies

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has recently announced a deal to make "multiple" new films based on J. R. R. Tolkien books.

No filmmakers have been assigned to this project for now, but in a statement to Variety, Jackson and his main "Lord of the Rings" collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens said Warner Bros. and Embracer "have kept us in the loop every step of the way."

Similarly, at the moment there is no definite information about whether the new films are going to re-adapt The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, or whether they are going to be spin-offs, based on yet-unexplored events or periods of Middle-earth history, public statements can be interpreted either way.

However, one thing is clear about this new project already – the fan reception has been strongly negative. For example, let's look at the most popular – by far – comment in the news thread on /r/Fantasy:

"Y'know, I could get mad about this, cause it's very dumb and a painfully transparent act of milking the life out of that world. But I've got the original trilogy on blu-ray and I can easily ignore whatever mediocre thing they do, so whatever."

Reactions in every other corner of Internet which doesn't get carefully purged of negativity are quite similar.

There is absolutely no faith that the modern Warner Bros. can either do a better adaptation of the books than Peter Jackson's two trilogies did, or to expand the cinematic Middle-earth with any sort of original stories (in fact, one of the common complaints even about Jackson's works was a notable dive in quality almost every time the movies went off the book script).

People generally seem to agree that this new film project looks like a blatant cash grab.

There is also feeling that with Jackson's movies becoming an iconic adaptation, and making a big impact on pop culture, it is too soon for an attempt to re-adapt Tolkien's books.

The studio, if they are indeed planning to re-tread the same ground, would have been wiser to wait for at least another decade, and make new Tolkien-based movies for a new generation.

But as it appears, after the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery the new corporation wants cash to flow ASAP.