Stephen Colbert Pitched His ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie to Peter Jackson Before CBS Even Canceled ‘The Late Show’

For years, Stephen Colbert’s love of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth was one of late night television’s most endearing running themes, a genuine obsession that produced cast reunions, obscure lore challenges, and even a cameo appearance in ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ back in 2013. Fans assumed it would always stay exactly that, a beloved bit of personality color from one of television’s most cerebral hosts.

CBS announced last year that it was canceling ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’, with the final episode set for May 21, more than 30 years after David Letterman first hosted in 1993. What the public did not know at the time was that Colbert had already quietly set an extraordinary new chapter in motion, one rooted entirely in that lifelong passion for Tolkien.

At the Cannes Film Festival this week, where Peter Jackson was honored with a Palme d’Or on opening night, the director revealed to Variety that Colbert had phoned him roughly a year before the CBS cancellation ever came. Jackson described a call in which Colbert said he was unsure whether the director would be interested, but had an idea for a Tolkien film based on the books that he genuinely believed could work. Jackson added that the cancellation, while clearly a shock, had given Colbert something meaningful to hold onto, joking that one day his collaborator was a late night host and the next he was set to become a Tolkien scriptwriter.

The project in question is ‘The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past‘, the second of two upcoming features in the pipeline from Warner Bros. and its New Line division. The official logline follows Sam, Merry and Pippin as they retrace the earliest steps of their adventure fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, while Sam’s daughter Elanor uncovers a long-buried secret about how the War of the Ring nearly fell apart before it began. Colbert’s script draws from six early chapters of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ that Jackson’s original adaptation left unfilmed, specifically the stretch running from “Three Is Company” through “Fog on the Barrow-downs,” a section filled with Tom Bombadil, the Barrow-wight, and Old Man Willow.

Colbert told CNN at the time of the first announcement that it took him years to gather the courage to make the call, and that he had spent that time developing the concept alongside his son and working out a framing device for the story. He will co-write the screenplay with his son Peter McGee and Oscar-winning franchise veteran Philippa Boyens, collaborating closely with Jackson and his longtime partner Fran Walsh throughout development. Colbert even traveled to New Zealand to be closer to the creative team as the project took shape.

‘Shadow of the Past’ follows ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’, directed by Andy Serkis and slated for release on December 17, 2027, with Ian McKellen reprising Gandalf and Kate Winslet joining the cast. No release date has been set for Colbert’s installment, but the framework is firmly in place.

With a passionate superfan now holding the pen on a chapter Jackson himself never filmed, the big question for Middle-earth devotees is whether ‘Shadow of the Past’ will finally bring Tom Bombadil to the screen after decades of fan outcry over his omission.