Peter Jackson Wants to Go Deeper Into Middle-earth With More LORD OF THE RINGS Movies

Middle-earth is about to make a big comeback, and Peter Jacksonsounds more than ready to keep exploring it beyond the two films currently in development.

While Amazon continues expanding Tolkien’s universe on the small screen with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Warner Bros. is building its own future for the franchise in theaters.

We already know thatLord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is set for release on December 17, 2027, with Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Pastplanned after that. But it sounds like Jackson is hoping those films are only the beginning.

During a recent interview with Deadline, Jackson talked about the future of the franchise and admitted that there’s only so much material left to pull from the appendices connected to Tolkien’s original novels.

He explained that “the appendices are gonna run dry” eventually, and he’d much rather start adapting some of the larger Tolkien stories that he believes “actually make great movies.”

That includes two titles fantasy fans have been wanting to see brought to life for years: The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

For a long time, those projects were essentially off the table because Tolkien’s son, Christopher Tolkien, controlled much of the estate and famously wasn’t a fan of the film adaptations. Christopher spent decades editing and publishing his father’s unfinished writings across 24 volumes, and he was protective of how that material was handled.

But after Christopher Tolkien passed away in 2020, things started to shift. According to Jackson, the younger generation now overseeing the Tolkien estate is “much more open” to expanding the cinematic side of Middle-earth. He revealed that discussions are already happening with the estate about licensing rights to “some of the other books.”

Jackson also admitted he’s eager to move beyond the material filmmakers have been mining for years, saying it would be nice “to get away from the appendices and get something a bit more meatier.”

Honestly, it’s easy to see why Warner Bros. would want to keep pushing further into Tolkien’s world. Fantasy franchises are still massive business, and the studio clearly wants The Lord of the Rings to remain one of its crown jewels.

The real question is whether audiences are ready to jump back in for another long stretch of Middle-earth storytelling. Fans embraced Jackson’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy as a cinematic event, but reactions to The Hobbit films were far more mixed.

Still, if Jackson somehow gets the chance to tackle The Silmarillion, that could become one of the most ambitious fantasy projects Hollywood has ever attempted.

Tolkien’s mythology is enormous, strange, tragic, and packed with legendary wars, ancient kingdoms, terrifying creatures, and some seriously awesome lore that casual moviegoers have barely scratched the surface of.

Fo Tolkien fans, the possibility is pretty exciting.