New Lord of the Rings movies are an exciting prospect, but they shouldn’t be about Aragorn, Gandalf, or Gollum. All three Lord of the Rings characters have had their names floated as candidates to lead new spinoff movies. Other characters counted as possible choices for these roles are Éowyn and Galadriel.
Amazon’s The Rings of Power show isn’t the extent of what audiences will see of the Lord of the Rings brand in the years to come. In addition to the live-action TV series set in Tolkien’s world, an anime movie titled The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is in development and currently has a 2024 release date. What the two projects have in common is that for the most part, they shine the spotlight on characters who weren’t in the Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit trilogies. However, another future spinoff may take a different direction. Embracer Group has acquired the film rights to the property, and based on what’s been said about their plans, its interests are in exploring a handful of the franchise’s existing characters.
Embracer hasn’t announced any official movies, but a press release identified Aragorn, Gollum, Gandalf, Éowyn, and Galadriel as characters who could be the protagonists of their Lords of the Rings movies. Of the five, three should be completely avoided. ittedly, the movies have left gaps that could be filled, but there really isn’t a need for that. The movies have already told the most meaningful stories that they possibly could with Gandalf, Gollum, and Aragorn. Exactly how Gollum became the twisted creature he is in the movies is already well-known, and origin stories for Gandalf and Aragorn (which is all that’s really left to do with either character in the Middle-earth) don’t really seem like necessary additions to the Lord of the Rings lore.
New LOTR Movies Will Familiar Characters Feels Inevitable, But Shouldn't Happen
As iconic as these characters are, it’s actually not all that surprising that Embracer is looking to revisit them in Lord of the Rings' future. In fact, their popularity has always lent a slight sense of inevitable to this notion that they’ll appear again. With the franchise expanding beyond the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, there‘s an even stronger feeling that it’s only a matter of time before Aragorn, Gandalf, and perhaps even Gollum get spinoffs in some form or another. But given how the previous movies perfectly completed their arcs, it would be so much better for Embracer to look elsewhere for more Lord of the Rings stories.
The world Tolkien create is so massive and ripe with storytelling potential that it would be a missed opportunity to keep the focus on icons like Aragorn and Gandalf. Amazon’s decision to make The Rings of Power about a mostly new ensemble of characters creates a blueprint for what should be done with the Lord of the Rings property. With all the concepts that Tolkien developed when crafting his Middle-earth world, there’s no limit to the grand adventures that could be explored in the movies to come.
