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Lord of the Rings anime prequel movie War of the Rohirrim announced

The War of the Rohirrim will focus on old Rohan King Helm Hammerhand, but it's nothing to do with the Amazon series.

Corinne Reichert Senior Editor
Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently writes news, analysis and features for CNET across the topics of electric vehicles, broadband networks, mobile devices, big tech, artificial intelligence, home technology and entertainment. In her spare time, she watches soccer games and F1 races, and goes to Disneyland as often as possible.
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Corinne Reichert
2 min read
Lord of the Rings War of the Rohirrim anime

An anime film will take us back to Middle-earth.

Warner Bros.

A new Lord of the Rings prequel is on its way -- this time, in anime form. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will focus on Helm Hammerhand, the ninth king of Rohan. The movie set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth universe was announced Thursday and will be made by Warner Bros. Animation and Kenji Kamiyama, the director behind Ghost in the Shell.

The flick will go into the history of Helm's Deep, the famous site of the later Battle of the Hornburg during the War of the Ring, shown in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie.

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"The opportunity to dive back into Middle-earth with the team at Warner Bros. Animation is a dream come true," said Carolyn Blackwood, Warner Bros. Pictures Group COO and Richard Brener, New Line Cinema president and Chief Creative Officer. "Fans know Helm's Deep as the stage for one of the greatest battles ever put to film and, with many of the same creative visionaries involved and the brilliant Kenji Kamiyama at the helm, we couldn't be more excited to deliver a fresh vision of its history."

Philippa Boyens, who worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy 20 years ago with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, is a consultant on the anime movie.

The movie will be fast-tracked, Warner Bros. said. Voice actors have yet to be cast.

Amazon Prime is likewise working on a Lord of the Rings prequel, but it's planning a high-budget fantasy TV series. That series is reportedly set in Tolkien's Second Age, thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings take place.