Following the announcement last week of David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, from an agreement with rights holders Embracer Group to develop and produce several new Lord of the Rings films, things are becoming clearer as to how the future is envisaged at Warner.
The art of candor
If, for the moment, no script has yet been written, the studio's avowed goal is to transform The Lord of the Rings into a “Star Wars-like franchise”. The ambition being to recruit Peter Jackson and his writing partners, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, to join the project and start the new franchise, which Amazon had failed to do with the TV series The Rings. to be able to.
And Amazon then?
Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke reacted to Warner's announcement: "We'll see if it's too much for the market, but we love our original series. We are extremely proud of it and are investing in it for the long term. So we really think the fan love is big enough to be around for a long time to come.”
Suffice to say that the exploitation of the Tolkien world in streaming and in the cinema, at the same time and by two competing studios, could very quickly turn into a new Game of Thrones… To be continued. Source: Variety
