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New Line Cinema is returning to Middle Earth.

The studio behind the feature film trilogies “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” is partnering with Warner Bros. Animation on the original anime theatrical feature “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.”

The stand-alone feature will depict the bloody saga behind Helm’s Deep, the fortress depicted in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” and the man in whose honor it’s named: Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan who spent much of his reign locked in a prolonged and costly war.

Veteran anime filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama, who helmed Netflix’s “Ultraman” anime series, will direct the film from a screenplay by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (“The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”). Joseph Chou (the “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” TV series) is producing.

While the filmmaking team is new to the “Lord of the Rings” movie franchise, the project is intended to be connected to director Peter Jackson’s six Middle Earth films based on the books of J.R.R. Tolkien. Philippa Boyens, who won an Oscar for the screenplay for “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” is consulting on the project, which will also draw its aesthetic and narrative inspiration from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“The War of the Rohirrim” is not, however, connected to Amazon’s gargantuan “Lord of the Rings” series that is deep into production in New Zealand. That project is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, millennia before the events of the feature films; Helm Hammerhand’s reign, by contrast, unfolded roughly 260 years before the “LOTR” movies.

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/lor ... ros-animation-1234993740/