Warner Bros Set to Milk Nostalgia to Death with New Lord of the Rings Movies
In today's day and age, studios are constantly looking to cash in on nostalgia.
Whether it's a remake of an old favorite or a sequel nobody asked for, these projects often focus more on name recognition than creating something truly original. So when news broke recently that Warner Bros was developing new Lord of the Rings movies, some fans were noticeably worried that this is simply one more attempt to milk another beloved franchise for all its worth.
Last Thursday, CEO David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery announced to the world that a deal has been officially brokered to make "multiple" films based on the beloved J. R. R. Tolkien books".
It's known that the movie will be developed through WB label New Line Cinema, the same studio that Jackson made his own LotR trilogy.
When asked about the decision to create new LotR movies, Jackson and previous film's co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens said: "Warner Brothers and Embracer have kept us in the loop every step of the way". However, whether that means the studio wants the three of them back for more is yet to be established.
Naturally, the reactions to the news from Tolkien fans were less than enthusiastic. Especially after much controversy and dislike of Amazon's original series set in the Tolkienverse, The Rings of Power. Which lots of its viewers last year considered to be a poor imitation of Tolkien's works instead of an accurate representation of Middle-Earth on screen. Fans flocked to Reddit to share their own judgments on the news, with much general consensus being that any new LotR films are not a good idea.
Many Redditors responded by posing the question of why we need more adaptations of LotR in movies at all. Particularly considering that Peter Jackson's version is regarded as one of the best trilogies ever made.
Others also point out that if the studio intends to stray into yet-to-be-explored areas of Tolkien's written works, the material is likely too thin to base anything substantial on it. Overall, fans seem unimpressed with the idea of more films in the Tolkien franchise. And to them, the bar has already been set too high by Jackson's movies for anything new to surpass it anyway.
After an underwhelming continuation of the movies with the "bloated" Hobbit trilogy and a less than satisfactory start to Amazon's RoP, many Tolkien fans seem to have lost confidence in the idea of more LotR films. Even if Warner Bros are adamant about pushing on with the project, it will take much convincing to prove that this is an effort to do something worthwhile with the franchise. Not producing something we've seen so many times before, becoming just another flimsy cash grab.