Stephen Colbert is trading the late-night desk for the Shire. The comedian, who will host his final episode of The Late Show on May 21, has announced his next act: co-writing a new Lord of the Rings film alongside his son and the screenwriter behind Peter Jackson’s original trilogy.
In a video announcement posted Tuesday alongside director Peter Jackson, Colbert revealed he has been quietly developing The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past for the past two years. The film, which is currently in early development, will be the second of two new Rings projects from Warner Bros and New Line Cinema, following Andy Serkis’ The Hunt for Gollum, slated for 2027.
Colbert’s encyclopedic knowledge of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work is legendary among his fans. Over 11 years on The Late Show, he regularly stunned guests, including Jackson himself, with impromptu trivia challenges. Now, that lifelong obsession is becoming a professional reality.
“You know what the books mean to me, and what your films mean to me,” Colbert told Jackson in the announcement video. “But the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day”.
Those chapters, from “Three Is Company” through “Fog on the Barrow-Downs”, follow Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin as they first depart the Shire and encounter the enigmatic Tom Bombadil, a character famously omitted from Jackson’s 2001 film.
Colbert is developing the project with his son, Peter McGee, a screenwriter, and Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. The film’s official synopsis reveals a framing device set 14 years after Frodo’s departure for the Undying Lands: Sam, Merry, and Pippin retrace their first steps while Sam’s daughter, Elanor, uncovers a secret that nearly lost the War of the Ring before it began.
Colbert told Jackson he spent years working up the courage to make the call. “It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did,” he said. “You liked it enough to talk to me about it”.
The timing couldn’t be more fitting. CBS announced last July that The Late Show would end after Colbert’s contract expired, with the final episode set for May 21. In the announcement video, Colbert joked about his newfound availability.
“I did not think I would have the time,” he told Jackson with a grin. “It turns out I’m going to be free starting this summer”.
The project is a full-circle moment for Colbert, who has often cited Tolkien’s work as a guiding force in his life. He told The New York Times Magazine in 2019 that he has lost count of how many times he has read and reread the books, adding that “there are very few fictional works with that depth and background”.
Shadow of the Past remains in early development, with no director or release date announced. Jackson, who is producing the project, called Colbert a “very special partner” in the endeavor. For Colbert, who has spent more than two decades on television screens, the journey ahead looks very different, and deeply personal.
“So, if you’ll excuse me,” he told Jackson at the end of the announcement video, “I have to go finish a television show, and I gotta write a movie script. But I’ll see you all in the Shire”.
