A new Lord of the Rings film is about to hit the big screens – taking fans back centuries before the famous trilogy.
Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim is the first time fans have seen Middle-earth in a decade following the final Hobbit movie – and this time, it looks a little different.
In this film, the Lord of the Rings has been adapted into an anime, directed by Kenji Kamiyama.
Screenwriter Phillipa Boyens said normally, it takes about five years to make an anime film and of this scale, probably longer – they had three.
“But I tell you what, the Kiwis came through,” she said.
The Oscar-winning trio from the original trilogy – Sir Peter Jackson, Dame Fran Walsh, and Boyens – are also all back for the spinoff.
“There’s a familiarity to this film but then you get to see it through fresh eyes and that’s something that Peter actually wanted. He’s the executive producer on this but he did very much step back to begin with.”
Sir Peter told 1News reporter Jordyn Rudd at the film’s New Zealand premiere in Matamata that he liked “the idea of revisiting Middle-earth in a format that we haven’t tried before”.
“We’ve done the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit trilogy… We don’t have to try to do something else like that again so just going into a different medium entirely, I thought, was a really interesting idea.”
Australian actress Miranda Otto is also back, reprising the role of Eowyn.
“It’s also just like a return to home, in some way,” Otto said.
“It’s really beautiful to rebuild on a character that you did 20 years ago, that you never thought that you would ever get to play again.”
The big names don’t stop there, either. Succession actor Brian Cox stars as Rohan’s ruler, Helm Hammerhand.
He told Breakfast: “What is wonderful about this is, I’ve been one that’s longing for the end of the patriarchy.”
“I think we’ve all suffered from the patriarchy for far too long and so when I saw the film, I thought it really hit something.”
Otto said when you’re in the voice studio, “you’re really just in the pure essence of the character and what they’re feeling”.
“It was a really emotional experience.”
