Count actor Elijah Wood among those who are rooting for the new Lord of the Rings movies that are planned.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Swedish media company Embracer Group said earlier this year they will produce more films based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Wood, who played Frodo Baggins in the massively successful LOTR Peter Jackson film trilogy, talked about what the new films might be in an interview with GQ.
“I’m fascinated and I’m excited. I hope it’s good,” Wood told GQ. “I’m surprised — I don’t know why I’m surprised, because of course there would be more movies.”
A new Lord of the Rings, along with a reimagined Harry Potter, are among the projects Warner Bros. Discovery has in the works.
“Obviously at the core of that is a desire to make a lot of money,” Wood allows. “It’s not that a bunch of executives are like, ‘Let’s make really awesome art.’ And, again, not begrudging anybody, because of course, it is commerce. But great art can come from commerce. So those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
Wood did say that the films he was in were slightly different from that view.
“But [Jackson’s] Lord of the Rings didn’t come out of that place. It came out of a passion for these books and wanting to see them realized. And I hope that that is ultimately what will drive everything forward with whatever these subsequent movies are. I just hope that it’s the same motivating factor at its core, whenever they hire a screenwriter and a filmmaker — that it is with reverence for Tolkien’s material and enthusiasm to explore it.”
The team behind the the Peter Jackson films – including Jackson himself – has claimed they are being apprised of the plans, although there’s been no announcement about actual involvement.