Announced during the Annecy Animation Festival last week, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have officially signed onboard to serve as executive producers for ‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’, the new anime feature film created by Kenji Kamiyama.
Kamiyama is best known for his work on Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, and Eden of the East. Jackson previously directed and co-wrote the original live-action films for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, while Walsh co-wrote the screenplays for both trilogies.
The film is described as an original anime feature, depicting “a legendary battle that helped shape Middle-earth and set the stage” for the main story, drawing inspiration from and expanding upon a brief section of J.R.R. Tolkien’s appendices to The Lord of the Rings.
Kamiyama also shared more details with Entertainment Weekly, calling it “the story of the most powerful king in Rohan’s history.” The film hopes to address the end of his lineage, the responsibility and hubris that comes with power, as well as the reality of war.
The protagonist Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, is played by Brian Cox; Gaia Wise plays Helm Hammerhand’s daughter named Hera; Luke Pasqualino plays a Dunlending Lord named Wulf; and Miranda Otto reprises her role as Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan. She is also the narrator of the film.
The cast also includes Lorraine Ashbourne, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Laurence Ubong Williams, Shaun Dooley, Michael Wildman, Jude Akuwudike, Bilal Hasna, and Janine Duvitski.
New Line Cinema is producing the film in partnership with Warner Bros. Animation. Sola Entertainment is responsible for the animation studios for the film, while Warner Bros. Pictures will distribute the film.
‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ was slated to premiere on April 12th, 2024 but was delayed to December 13th, 2024.
