Stephen Colbert announces hes co-writing a new LOTR movie on a video call with Peter Jackson

Mar 25, 2026 - 12:00
 0
Stephen Colbert announces hes co-writing a new LOTR movie on a video call with Peter Jackson
A side-by-side of two men on a video call.

We finally have an idea of how Stephen Colbert will be spending his time when The Late Show ends this spring.

In the video above, the host joins director Peter Jackson to announce that he's co-writing a new Lord of the Rings movie with his son, Peter McGee.

"You know what the books mean to me, and what your films mean to me," says Colbert in the clip. "But the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship that y'all never developed into the first movie, back in the day. It's basically the chapter 'Three is Company' through 'Fog on the Barrow Downs'. And then I thought, 'Oh wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story."

According to Variety, the movie will follow Sam, Merry and Pippin fourteen years after Frodo's death as they retrace their adventure. The chapters Colbert references in the video feature Tom Bombadil, a powerful character from the books that wasn't featured in Peter Jackson's trilogy.