And yet more adaptions....
 

"The franchise". F*cking McDonalds.

Taken in a vacuum, I'd dislike this news, but in a world of RoP and the Hobbit movies and the coming Helm Hammerhand animé, I kind of like the idea of there being more and more--incompatible--adaptations.

I think that there's a chance that the more they spread it around, the less the adaptations will "define" the books and the more the books will stand above them in the public mind.

I also kind of want to see how a Jackson et al take on original stories differs from RoP.

Awesome!
 

I agree with Formendacil. I look forward to what they all come up with. I've faced the fact that the whole 'gatekeeping' attempt was lost back in 1999, and the PJ projects were just the first visual fanfics. It took 20 some years and the death of Christopher and Saul, but the avalanche is starting.

As far as I can see all New Line have actually done is renew the standard LotR+Hobbit license they made LotR, Hobbit, and Rohirrim under. I'm sure Middle-earth Enterprises would like them to make lots of new movies and presumably pay lots of percentages, but there's no indication that they have actual plans.

I agree with Form that a bunch of incompatible adaptations would be kind of fun. I'm curious as to whether they'll choose to stick to stories taken from the books directly (eg, Young Aragorn, or Fall of Arnor), or whether they will expand to completely original stories set in Middle-earth (eg, literally any movie set entirely in the Shire). We know they're willing to animate, which takes a lot of the stress out of using wildly varied sets for different movies.

hS

It could be a sort of positive like Disney-era Star Wars- ultimately they all merge into one forgettable mass, and we can mentally go with the Lucas movies as the only real SW.

See, also, 21st-century Trek

Or worse, since we are speaking about Warner Brothers, they might start a project and abandon it mid-stream.