Lord Of The Rings Anime Movie Producer On The "Dream Come True" Project

Warner Bros. Animation is fast-tracking a Lord of the Rings anime movie called The War of the Rohirrim, and one of the producers has now spoken about how excited they are to be working on it.

Jason DeMarco, known for his work at Cartoon Network, expressed his passion for The Lord of the Rings across a series of tweets recently (via ComicBook). He said said he's over the moon about being able to work on the Lord of the Rings anime with Philippa Boyens and Kenji Kamiyama.

"Anyone who knows me knows I'm a true LOTR nerd. The chance to tell a Tolkien story with collaborators like Kenji Kamiyama and Philippa Boyens is literally a dream come true. And it will be a 2D, theatrical feature! Woooooooo," he said.

Demarco also shared an image of a Helm Hammerhand figure. As announced previously, Hammerhand is one of the main characters for the upcoming film.

What's more, Demarco posted images of an illustrated edition of The Hobbit that he says was the inspiration for his love of The Lord of the Rings when he was a kid in the 6th grade. "I stole it from the school library and read it 1000x before I even saw the animated movie," he said, presumably referencing the Ralph Bakshi's 1978 film.

Demarco's tweets got a "like" by Frodo actor Elijah Wood, which Demarco was pretty stoked about.

The standalone movie is produced by Joseph Chou (Blade Runner: Black Lotus), while Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance) wrote the script. As mentioned, Philippa Boyens, one of the Oscar-winning writers on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings series, is attached to the anime as a consultant.

While the movie is described as a standalone production, it's also referred to by Warner Bros. as a "companion piece" to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It will have "story and artistic elements" that may be familiar to fans of Jackson's series.

"All of us at New Line feel a deep affinity for the extraordinary world J.R.R. Tolkien created, so the opportunity to dive back into Middle-earth with the team at Warner Bros. Animation is a dream come true," New Line bosses Carolyn Blackwood and Richard Brener said. "Fans know Helm's Deep as the stage for one of the greatest battles ever put to film and, with many of the same creative visionaries involved and the brilliant Kenji Kamiyama at the helm, we couldn't be more excited to deliver a fresh vision of its history that will invite global audiences to experience the rich, complex saga of Middle-earth in a thrilling new way."

Warner Bros. says the movie is being "fast-tracked" as the studio prepares to release it in theaters. Sola Entertainment is working on the animation, while voice casting is now underway.

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring. Amazon is currently producing a big-budget Lord of the Rings TV show, while two of the Hobbits from Jackson's trilogy now have their own podcast.