- Stephen Colbert will co-write the new Lord of the Rings film, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, alongside Oscar-winning screenwriter Philippa Boyens and his own son, screenwriter Peter McGee.
- The film will bring back Sam, Merry, and Pippin for an entirely new adventure set 14 years after the passing of Frodo, drawing from six chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring that Peter Jackson never adapted into the original movies.
- Colbert quietly pitched the idea to Jackson two years ago, kept it completely secret, and announced it to the world on March 25, 2026, which also happens to be Tolkien Reading Day, the date the One Ring was destroyed in Middle-earth.
When CBS cancelled The Late Show earlier this year, most people wondered what Stephen Colbert would do next. Turns out, he had already been working on the answer for two years. And it is bigger, and more surprising, than anyone could have predicted.
The Secret He Kept for Two Years
This announcement did not come out of nowhere. It came out of a conversation Colbert had with his son years ago, a quiet obsession he nursed through late nights rereading Tolkien, and a phone call that took him years to finally make.
“It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did,” Colbert told Jackson in the announcement video. “You liked it enough to talk to me about it, and ever since then, the two of us have been working with the brilliant Philippa Boyens on how to develop this story.”
Two years of development. Completely under wraps. Not a single leak. In an entertainment industry that can barely keep a casting choice secret for 48 hours, that is a genuinely remarkable feat.
Warner Bros. had Peter Jackson make the announcement in a video, where he appeared to pull up a video chat to reveal a figure hiding behind a book. That figure was Colbert. As far as grand reveals go, it was perfectly engineered for a man who built an entire career on theatrical timing.
What the Film Is Actually About
Here is where it gets genuinely exciting for fans of the books, not just the films.
Colbert said the chapters he kept returning to were six early sections of The Fellowship of the Ring, running from “Three Is Company” through “Fog on the Barrow-downs,” which Jackson’s original trilogy never brought to the screen. Those chapters include one of the most beloved and divisive characters in all of Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, a mysterious, ageless figure who was cut entirely from Jackson’s original films and has been a source of fan debate ever since.
The official synopsis reads: “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter Elanor has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”
It is a framing device that is as clever as it is faithful. The beloved characters of the original trilogy revisit the chapters that never made it to cinema, while a new generation carries the story forward.
A Superfan Who Actually Earned the Job
This is not a celebrity vanity project. Colbert has been one of the most visibly passionate Tolkien devotees in public life for decades.
He moderated a Hobbit panel at Comic-Con in 2014 in full costume. He had a small cameo role in 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. He also directed Jackson, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood in a 2019 short film called Darrylgorn, set entirely in Middle-earth. This is a man who has been auditioning for this moment his entire adult life without anyone realising it.
The 10-time Emmy winner said he always wanted to partner with his son Peter McGee to write a Rings script, and that he knew the CBS cancellation was the sign he needed to finally dive in. “I knew I couldn’t do that and do the show at the same time,” he said, “but it turns out I’m going to be free starting this summer.”
Where This Fits in the Bigger Picture
Shadow of the Past will be the second of two new Lord of the Rings films coming from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. The first, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, is being directed by Andy Serkis and is set to release in 2027, with Ian McKellen returning as Gandalf and Kate Winslet joining the cast in an undisclosed role.
Across six films, the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises have generated nearly $6 billion in worldwide box office revenue. Warner Bros. is clearly betting that the appetite for Middle-earth is nowhere near exhausted. Based on the reaction to Tuesday’s announcement, they may be right.
Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show airs May 21, 2026. The next morning, one of television’s most recognisable faces becomes something he has spent his whole life quietly preparing for. A storyteller in Tolkien’s world.
Not a bad second act.
