How the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger will affect upcoming Tolkien films

Last week it was announced that all legal obstacles to the merger of Paramount Skydance Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. have been cleared, and the merger is set to close today, October 6. David Ellison, son of Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, will be the CEO of the new company, which will be named “Skydance” after the company he intially founded in 2010. The iconic Paramount and Warner Bros. brands will continue to operate under the Skydance umbrella.

Warner Bros. holds a license from Middle-earth Enterprises to produce feature films based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. It first acquired the license after a merger with New Line Cinema in 2008, after which it produced The Hobbit film trilogy and The War of the Rohirrim.

In February 2023, during the production of The War of the Rohirrim, Warner Bros. and Middle-earth Enterprises announced that they had negotiated a new deal which would allow Warner Bros. to continue to produce films based on the works of Tolkien. (WB had to acknowledge to MEE that its license had lapsed in 2021, which is what necessitated the new deal.)

Since then, Warner Bros. has announced the production of two new films, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum and The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of The Past (working title). In light of the imminent merger with Paramount, the question naturally arises: How will these projects be affected?

The Shadow of the Past pauses production

From KnightEdge Media comes the news that The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of The Past has been put on hold. Talk-show host, comedian, satirist, and Tolkien fan Stephen Colbert announced the film earlier this year, on Tolkien Day (March 25). The film is being written by Stephen Colbert, his son Peter McGee, and Philippa Boyens. Colbert previously had a brief cameo role as a ‘Laketown spy’ in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

The Shadow of the Past is set early in the Fourth Age (fourteen years after the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), and features the familiar Hobbits Sam, Merry, and Pippin, as well as Sam’s daughter, Elanor. In addition, it would feature flashbacks to events of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring which were left out of the film, such as the Hobbits’ meeting with Tom Bombadil on their way between the Shire and Bree.

From KnightEdge Media:

Originally, the movie was rumored to begin filming shortly after The Hunt for Gollum ended back in New Zealand. Now that Warner Bros. has officially merged with Paramount Pictures, a lot has changed in its executive leadership. Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are no longer with the company after facilitating Warner Brothers producing future Lord of the Rings films with Peter Jackson in 2023.

When two media companies merge, it is fairly common for projects in the early stages of production to be put on hold, or sometimes even canceled, during the merger. However, KnightEdge Media also speculates that there may be a political angle. In 2025 Stephen Colbert’s talk show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was canceled. The show aired on CBS, which belonged to Paramount. After the merger between Paramount and Skydance in 2024, David Ellison became CEO of Paramount Skydance, and he was ultimately in charge when Colbert’s show was canceled. The cancellation was widely seen as a move by Ellison to appease US President Donald Trump, who was often at odds with Colbert.

However, according to KnightEdge Media there is no indication that The Shadow of the Past has been canceled. The writing team may still work on the story, but production will not be ramping up anytime soon. Instead, the new studio heads will likely be waiting to see how well The Hunt for Gollum does at the box office before greenlighting further Tolkien-related projects.

Under these circumstances, it seems unlikely that Warner Bros. will announce any new Tolkien-related films until after the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is scheduled for 17 December, 2027. Nevertheless, the company does also need to keep producing films in order to retain the license. The new studio heads will probably be reevaluating the license to determine whether it is worth holding on to.

The Hunt for Gollum continues filming

KnightEdge Media also had this to say about The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum:

Nothing will stop production of The Hunt for Gollum, as it’s already begun filming and is expected to continue post-merger.

Filming started in mid-July, and is ongoing. Gollum actor Andy Serkis is directing and starring in the film. In addition to Serkis as Gollum, Ian McKellen will be returning as Gandalf, and Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins. However, Aragorn has been recast, with Jamie Dornan filling the role portrayed by Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The story concerns the efforts of Gandalf and Aragorn to track down Gollum and determine the nature of the magic ring obtained by Bilbo Baggins from Gollum, which is now in Frodo’s possession. Gandalf wishes to find out if the ring is one of the Rings of Power created by Celebrimbor and the smiths of Eregion, and in particular, if it is the One Ring forged by Sauron himself to control the other Rings of Power.

This past weekend the Tolkien Collector’s Guide celebrated its 20th anniversary with 20 hours of livestream, and among the guests on the livestream was Dr. Giuseppe Pezzini. Pezzini is a Professor of Latin and Classical Philology at Oxford University, and he is also the principal Tolkien consultant for The Hunt for Gollum. The livestream may be viewed below. Professor Pezzini’s interview begins around 2:12:20 and runs for a little over 40 minutes:

Among the details Pezzini was able to reveal were that he was hired by Philippa Boyens in January, 2025, and has been in New Zealand since early September this year. His first task was to research the story and ensure that it was rooted in Tolkien’s lore. Despite this mandate, he was also told from the beginning that the film would be an adaptation and an interpretation of Tolkien, and not a strict retelling of something Tolkien had written.

Much of his research was on Gollum, his backstory, and the community of Stoors on the banks of the Anduin to which he belonged. Pezzini said he put together almost a book’s worth of notes, comments, and research on this.

In addition to this research, Pezzini also reviewed the script and offered his comments on it in terms of Tolkien’s lore, and his literary and philosophical vision.

Not only has he served as the film’s Tolkien consultant, but he also worked on the languages in the film. This was a role filled by David Salo for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. Pezzini specifically mentioned Elvish and the Black Speech. As a youth he spent time learning Elvish, and never imagined that it was something he would one day be paid for doing.

Pezzini noted that his job was somewhat easier than David Salo’s, as he already had Salo’s extensive work to draw from while extending the languages, whereas Salo had been pretty much limited to what Tolkien himself had written. Pezzini was also able to draw on his background as a philologist while deciding how to extend the language to meet the needs of the film. Regarding his contributions to the invented languages of Tolkien, Pezzini said:

I hope to be right when I say that there is not a single thing that I invented which is not based on attested evidence.

Although he is spending September and October in New Zealand, Pezzini said he had already completed most of his work before arriving in New Zealand. While filming is ongoing, he is still doing a bit of translation, as well as having informal conversations about the scenes being filmed, but his job was mostly complete before filming began.

When asked if he had a cameo in the film, he said he did not. However, his two daughters should appear in the film as Hobbits.

Pezzini has a background in Roman theater as well as literature, but he hadn’t experienced a motion picture production behind the scenes before. He was awed by how many different layers of crews had to be involved and work together seamlessly to accomplish everyone’s goal:

If you are not humble, you will not be able to contribute properly to the project.

According to Pezzini, filming is nearing completion, and he will be returning to Oxford at the end of October.

More about Professor Pezzini

Dr. Giuseppe Pezzini’s academic career has focused on the Latin language and its literature. In addition to teaching and publishing on the subject, he was Assistant Editor for the Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Latin.

He is also the Tolkien Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies, and has published various articles in the field of Tolkien Studies. Among other works, he was editor of J.R.R. Tolkien and G.B. Smith: With Wind in our Ears, on the poetry of G.B. Smith and his friendship with Tolkien.

Pezzini also organized a conference in June this year, in Italy, on Tolkien and the ancient custom of hospitality. In his presentation he compared and contrasted Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings with Circe in The Odyssey. Oddly enough, this was barely a month before the release of the film The Odyssey, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, in which these customs of hospitality play a central role.

Pezzini helped organize and is a permanent member of the Oxford Tolkien Network, whose purpose is to bring together Tolkien researchers at Oxford and elsewhere. In addition, he was on the chair of the committee that was tasked with finding an artist and a vision for the design of the proposed memorial to Tolkien in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

After he returns to Oxford from New Zealand, Professor Pezzini has a full plate. In addition to teaching and supervising PhDs, he is working on a book about J.R.R. Tolkien and the Classical tradition. Tolkien had a fondness for Classical literature, including the works of Homer, and was a student of the Classics at Oxford before switching to English Language and Literature.

Pezzini is also organizing a conference on Tolkien’s poetry, in conjunction with the unveiling of the memorial to Tolkien in Westminster Abbey next year.

After he completes his work on Tolkien and the Classics, he is considering writing about the influence of John Henry Newman on Tolkien’s spiritual beliefs. Although Newman died shortly before Tolkien was born, he was an influential Roman Catholic priest in 19th-century England, who like Tolkien’s mother had converted from a Protestant faith. Newman founded the Birmingham Oratory, where Tolkien and his brother were made wards in the event of his mother’s death. The Tolkiens’ guardian, Francis Xavier Morgan, had been an early student of Newman’s. Cardinal Newman was canonized by Pope Francis in 2019.