There is perhaps nothing more revealing about the desperate state of Hollywood than its obsession with digging up old franchises in a futile race to capitalize on audeince nostalgia. In fact, it has been widely understood in the film industry for the past decade that almost no project will be greenlit unless it is a reboot, remake or "re-imagining" of a previously popular story property.
The problem, which everyone except Hollywood executives understands, is that you cannot recapture the magic of older hit movies, especially when your stable of writing talent is populated by an army of left-wing, pill popping ideological lunatics with no moral standards to speak of. These kinds of people are simply incapable of relating to the common moviegoer.
This dynamic has led Hollywood down a path of financial destruction, with dozens of big budget films bombing at the box office in the past year alone. Some projects have lost hundreds of millions of dollars and the smell of napalm is heavy in the air.
One disastrous reboot attempt that set Hollywood on the path of total defeat is Amazon's ludicrous Lord Of The Rings project, "The Rings Of Power". A non-canonical adaptation of limited parts of The Silmarillion, the show turns Galadriel, the personification of the pure feminine, into a spitting, angry feminist girl-boss that slaughters orcs by the barrel. The show's writing was saturated with sad approximations of Tolkien-style dialogue written by people with no life experience or wisdom.
Tolkien was a historical linguistics professor who fought in some of the bloodiest battles of WWI. His insight into mythology and the human condition was deep and compelling. The idea that anyone in current-day Hollywood could hold a candle to him is absurd.
The series was meant to exploit the pre-existing fanbase of the Peter Jackson trilogy. Amazon execs bragged that the franchise was a sure thing, suggesting that the fans were a "captive audience" that would rush consume whatever drivel Amazon produced.
It was also clearly designed with the illusory left-wing "modern audience" in mind, and of course, that audience never showed up to watch. Rings of Power is now considered a critical failure and a huge money-loser for Amazon. But, one celebrity who jumped on the Amazon bandwagon early in the game was leftist propagandist Stephen Colbert, a self proclaimed Lord of the Rings "superfan".
Colbert was a primary promoter for the Rings Of Power series launch and at no point did he ever question the validity of the story or its major deviations from the spirit of the source material. What better person to co-write the next installment of the Lord Of The Rings film series?
New Line has recruited an aging Peter Jackson to helm a series of film spinoffs, but it's hard to say yet how much freedom his team will have in the production. The idea to include Colbert could very well bury the effort before it begins.
The announcement is bizarre, given The Colbert Show's collapsing audience numbers and his dwindling popularity. He is a largely hated figure in the world of entertainment and in politics. But, the decision does make perfect sense if you consider the possibility that Hollywood's only goal at this point is to destroy every single beloved franchise of the past and give a big middle finger to fans.
The Amazon series proved that LOTR audiences could not be suckered or controlled, so, instead, it appears the industry is bent on petty revenge instead. The tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is set to be written by Colbert, Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee. Colbert revealed that the film will be based on “Fogs on the Barrow-downs,” the eighth chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring
The notion that a woke pariah and Big Pharma shill with no moral compass could ever write an adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, a story based on the honor and inherent goodness in the hearts of men, is rather insulting. But, maybe that's the point.