Colbert Pitched His LOTR Movie Before Late Show Was Canceled

Stephen Colbert pitched his Lord of the Rings sequel idea to Peter Jackson a full year before CBS canceled The Late Show.
The film, currently titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, is co-written by Colbert, his son Peter McGee, and longtime Jackson collaborator Philippa Boyens.
Jackson says Colbert has helped him process the shock of losing his show — calling the LOTR project a “blessing in disguise.”
The sequel is set 14 years after Frodo’s passing and follows Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Sam’s daughter Elanor on a new adventure.
Colbert traveled to New Zealand to work with Jackson’s team and has spent a year developing the treatment.

Long before CBS pulled the plug on The Late Show, Stephen Colbert was already quietly building himself a second act in Middle-earth. Peter Jackson revealed at the Cannes Film Festival — where he was honored with a Palme d’Or on opening night — that Colbert called him up a full year ago with an idea for a new Tolkien film, well before either of them had any idea the late-night era of his career was about to end.

“He phoned me up a year ago — before he knew his show was going to finish — and said, ‘I don’t know if you’re interesting, but I’ve got an idea for a Tolkien movie based on the books that I think would be really good,’” Jackson told Variety. Jackson was sold. He liked the pitch enough to connect Colbert with Philippa Boyens — the screenwriter who co-wrote both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies with him — and the three of them have been working on a treatment ever since. Colbert even flew to New Zealand to be closer to the team.

Then, right in the middle of all that, CBS canceled The Late Show.

Jackson didn’t mince words about how he felt about that decision, saying it wasn’t what the show or Colbert “deserved.” But he also sees a silver lining. Having a project this big waiting in the wings — something Colbert had been building quietly for a year — turned a gut punch into something more manageable.

“I think Stephen’s actually really happy — I think it helped him process what was a rather shocking,” Jackson said. “So it was like, okay, one day he’s going to be a late-night talk show host, and the next day he’s going to be a Tolkien scriptwriter.”

Jackson also made clear just how seriously he takes Colbert as a Tolkien authority. “I’ve never met anyone who knows more about Tolkien,” he said — high praise from the man who spent over a decade adapting the books for the screen.

What the Movie Is Actually About

The film currently carries the working title The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, and its official logline gives fans a real sense of what Colbert, his son Peter McGee, and Boyens have been building. Set fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, the story follows Sam, Merry, and Pippin as they set out to retrace the first steps of their original adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter Elanor uncovers a long-buried secret — one that reveals the War of the Ring was nearly lost before it ever truly began.

It’s a sequel, not a prequel — which makes it a different beast from the other new LOTR film in development. That one, The Hunt for Gollum, is directed by Andy Serkis and is set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Colbert’s film will follow Serkis’ in the pipeline, though no release date has been set yet.

This Isn’t Colbert’s First Trip to Middle-earth

None of this came out of nowhere. Colbert has long been one of Hollywood’s most devoted Tolkien fans, and his connection to Jackson is real and established. He had a small role in 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and in 2019 he directed Jackson — along with Lord of the Rings stars Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood — in the short film Darrylgorn, set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. It was Colbert who leveraged that existing relationship to make the call that started all of this.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs its final episode on May 21, 2026. And when that chapter closes, it sounds like Colbert already knows exactly where he’s headed next.