Let’s be honest, no one saw this coming on their bingo card: A Lord of the Rings sequel is in the works. But in a twist, that’s hardly the most fascinating or headline-grabbing part of that news. Not only is the new LOTR project set to be co-written by comedy legend and soon-to-be Late Show alum Stephen Colbert, but it will also feature a character many a fan has rallied for over the years to appear onscreen. That’s right: Tom Bombadil will finally make his Peter Jackson LOTR franchise movie debut. We repeat: In a script. Co-written by. Stephen Colbert.
Here’s the summary of the new LOTR project (via Variety), and though it doesn’t mention Tom Bombadil by name, he’s integral to the six chapters mentioned that the film will cover.
“Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”
Titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, Colbert and Jackson discussed the movie, currently in pre-production as of this writing, in an unexpected early morning drop on March 25, which coincided with Tolkien Reading Day, a worldwide commemoration meant to prompt fans and newbies alike to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s books.
During the clip, the director and former Colbert Report host explained that Tom Bombadil’s absence from the original trilogy was a primary driving force behind the movie.​
Who Tom Bombadil Is & Why He Was Absent From the Original ‘Lord of the Rings’ Franchise
According to Colbert — a self-professed Tolkien nerd — the film is meant to explore six chapters which appear in the original text of The Fellowship of the Ring, but were excised from its 2001 movie adaptation. After espousing how much the books are near and dear to his heart, the media personality described an ever-growing fixation on these formative chapters — which were ostensibly cut due to time constraints — specifically “Fog on the Barrow-downs,” which introduces Tom Bombadil, a fan-favorite.
“I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in [‘The Fellowship of the Ring’] that ya’ll never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically the chapter ‘Three Is Company’ [Chapter III] through ‘Fog on the Barrow-downs’ [Chapter VIII]. And I thought, ‘Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?'”
As a character, Tom Bombadil is one of the very few living beings in the Tolkienverse who is unaffected by the One Ring, automatically making him a somewhat enigmatic figure. His first (and essentially only) appearance in Tolkien’s trilogy is marked by three chapters: “The Old Forest,” in which he encounters Frodo, Merry, Pip, and Samwise as they make their way through the titular Old Forest; “In the House of Tom Bombadil,” which the gang of hobbits is invited to his home; and “Fog on the Barrow-Downs,” which he sends them on their way, though they are once again saved by Tom and then bequeathed with weaponry to protect the on their journey. During this three-chapter run, Frodo considers abandoning his friends on their quest, which becomes an emotional locus in the books. That said, it’s hardly the only time the character called by others as “The Master” and “The Eldest” pops in and out of Tolkien’s literary canon.
What Makes Tom Bombadil So Important to ‘Lord of the Rings’ Fans?
Technically, the character precedes the LOTR trilogy, and even its prequel, The Hobbit, at least in ideation. Tolkien penned notes for what would later be the “Barrows Down” chapter and published a poem devoted entirely to Tom Bombadil, which appeared in Oxford Magazine in 1933 or 1934, depending on the source. For context, The Hobbit was published in 1937. Decades after the initial publication of the poem and his only in-person cameo in Tolkien’s trilogy, a book solely about Tom Bombadil went to print in 1962, comprised of epic poetry dedicated to a character which, as Tolkien scholars suggest, is categorically unclassifiable within a conventional taxonomy of the Tolkienverse.
To wit, Tom Bombadil’s debut in Jackson and Colbert’s joint project will not be the first time he’s appeared onscreen (though, technically, it will mark his first in a movie — specifically, in a Jackson film. The character, played by English actor Rory Kinnear, made his debut in Season 2 of Amazon Prime’s LOTR spin-off. Peter Jackson kept Bombadil out of the film trilogy to maintain fluid pacing, believing the character nonessential to the story.
The Colbert-Jackson collaboration will follow another film in the works, The Hunt for Gollum. It will be helmed by Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the original trilogy and will reprise his role in the upcoming film.
