Hot on the heels of the first trailer for Amazon’s The Rings of Power series, Warner Bros. has announced another adaptation from the world of J.R.R. Tolkien — this one very different. The War of the Rohirrim will be set a couple hundred years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings during the building of Helm’s Deep, the fortress at the center of the action in The Two Towers. That all tracks. But perhaps more surprising is the medium here, which will be an anime.
The War of the Rohirrim will be completely separate from Amazon’s series, focusing instead on the adventures of the Rohan King Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan. It’s coming from Kenji Kamiyama, the man behind Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Philippa Boyens, who won an Oscar for her work on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, will be producing. Her daughter Phoebe Gittins will handle the script for this one, along with her writing partner Arty Papageorgiou.
“The Lord of the Rings films took Tolkien’s masterwork to new cinematic heights and inspired a generation,” Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich told Variety. “It’s a gift to be able to revisit Middle-earth with many of the same creative visionaries and the talented Kenji Kamiyama at the helm. This will be an epic portrayal unlike anything audiences have ever seen.”
