The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim | December 13, 2024 | New Line/WB | Anime | Kenji Kamiyama directing.

[Ozymandias]

 

Probably a teaser this week

 

 

[James]

The release date for this is now December 2024. Also since this is less than a year from release shouldn’t it be moved to the main part of the forums?

[dudalb]

I am probaly not seeing this. More of a Tolkien Purist then I thought.

[PlatnumRoyce]

Remember that this was very obviously a rights-maintenance play by WB against Zantz company reclaiming LotR film adaptation rights. These are the contrasting view litigated in the trades

 

Quote

But it’s understood that in the Zaentz Co.’s view, substantial live-action film rights reverted back to them last year in part because Warner Bros. had not been actively developing new “LOTR” and related content

versus

 

Quote

“New Line Cinema has maintained the theatrical film rights, both live-action and animated, for over two decades now,” a Warner Bros. spokeswoman told Variety. “We are currently in production on our anime film ‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ and look forward to bringing audiences back to Middle-earth.”

Given the purchase of Zaentz by Embracer and legal settlement with WB, it seems clear Zaentz/Embracer had the better legal position but I doubt this gets made without such concerns needing to be litigated. 

[jking123]

wonder when we get a trailer for this. Would be nice if this was a high budget film with great production values. 

 

Off topic but i wonder how Warner's live action Lord of the rings revamp is going. The Harry potter Max series is picking up a bit of steam but theres been no reports on their LOTR plans.

[dudalb]

23 hours ago, jking123 said:

wonder when we get a trailer for this. Would be nice if this was a high budget film with great production values. 

 

Off topic but i wonder how Warner's live action Lord of the rings revamp is going. The Harry potter Max series is picking up a bit of steam but theres been no reports on their LOTR plans.

As A Tolkien fan, I would just as soon they put all LOTR plans on hold until they get the rights to the Silmarralion.

I am Very Skeptical of any "Spinoffs" from Tolkien's work.

[Boxx93]

Is this anime movie going to be 2D Hand Drawn or 3D CGI?

[SpiderByte]

4 minutes ago, Boxx93 said:

Is this anime movie going to be 2D Hand Drawn or 3D CGI?

With the way the anime industry is these days probably a mix of both

 

But remember: the biggest criticism of the Lion King live action was that it was just "the original, but worse". This will be it's own thing which mitigates that kind of backlash.

Edited March 1 by SpiderByte

[dudalb]

7 hours ago, SpiderByte said:

With the way the anime industry is these days probably a mix of both

 

But remember: the biggest criticism of the Lion King live action was that it was just "the original, but worse". This will be it's own thing which mitigates that kind of backlash.

Not from a lot of Tolkein fans. Any Spin Off will get a lot of criticism. 

[kayumanggi]

Nothing on this at CinemaCon?

[AniNate]

I would've expected you to be very much on top of it if there was

[ReturnOfTheBoxOffice]

I imagine Rings of Power will actually help this movie out a lot with the hardcore fans. “It’s much better than ROP at least!” I bet this surprises people. 50 million opening weekend.

[Elessar]

Don't expect too much in terms of gross. Anime is not mainstream enough.

[AniNate]

This basically seems like a Crunchyroll release with the Tolkien IP as an extra hook 

[Mojoguy]

1 hour ago, AniNate said:

This basically seems like a Crunchyroll release with the Tolkien IP as an extra hook 

Hey, branding helped the first Hobbit make a billion didn't it? Also each sequel ended up around the 900s.

[Elessar]

6 hours ago, Mojoguy said:

Hey, branding helped the first Hobbit make a billion didn't it? Also each sequel ended up around the 900s.

 

Star Wars Clone Wars is a much better analogy.

[AniNate]

Maybe if Ghibli were doing this that would add an extra layer of interest

[ReturnOfTheBoxOffice]

I think when the first trailer drops y’all will see how big this is gonna be. I seriously doubt this plays like an anime film or a Star Wars show.

[AniNate]

I'm sure there will be a lot of internet hype, but this also very much seems like the kind of thing the internet overhypes

[Porthos]

12 hours ago, Elessar said:

 

Star Wars Clone Wars is a much better analogy.

 

Probably a bit extreme, as there was several things going against that "film" that shouldn't be at play here and I do think the current box office environment is a bit better overall for such a project.

 

But as a general setting of expectations range?  Probably better to think to that end of the equation when it comes to box office, sure.

 

I think it's the legs which is the bigger wildcard as that can be all over the place when it comes to anime.  Or put more simply, how much will this "break out" of the crowd which is anime and anime-adjacent?  I don't think we've seen a single frame of this yet, so it's still up in the air how weird stylized this will look. 

 

And like it or not, I do think "how it looks" will matter when it comes to the GA.  Then there's just the "diminishing returns" aspect of something which is an off-shoot of a franchise.  

 

To wrap up all of this in a bow, could it take off?  Sure.  It's connected to the LotR brand (which is still very potent) and anime has been getting more popular in the US.  This is the type of film that could be a breakthrough film.

 

Could doesn't mean will, though.  Might not even be likely, depending on how one defines "likely".  Hard to really judge with lit-er-a-ly nothing to judge on.