Warner Bros. Discovery’s recent announcement that more “Lord of the Rings” movies were in development was met with a mix of excitement and concern. While Amazon’s “The Rings of Power” proved that there is still a large market for stories set in Middle Earth, many fans doubted that anything the studio puts out could match Peter Jackson’s original films.
Elijah Wood has his doubts too, but he’s erring on the side of optimism. In a new interview with GQ, the Frodo actor said that the economics of Hollywood make it seem obvious in hindsight that there were always going to be more “Lord of the Rings” films. He expressed cautious hope about the upcoming movies while offering the studio some advice about recapturing the magic of Tolkien and Jackson’s work.
“I’m fascinated and I’m excited,” he said of the new films. “I hope it’s good. I’m surprised—I don’t know why I’m surprised because, of course, there would be more movies. Obviously at the core of that is a desire to make a lot of money. 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.”
The actor explained that he sees Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films as an example of a Hollywood franchise that originated in a less cynical way. He said that he thinks those original films succeeded because they were driven by a passion for Tolkien’s source material rather than just profit — and he hopes that the new films will be made in a similar fashion.
“But ‘Lord of the Rings’ didn’t come out of that place,” he said. “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.”
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