Lord Of The Rings Animated Movie Revealed in Three Epic New Images

The future looks bright for The Lord of the Rings as several projects enter production. Arguably the most unique one is feature-length animated movie The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim .

Directed by Kenji Kamiyama, The War of the Rohirrim takes place almost two hundred years before The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which Frodo and his fellowship embarked on a quest to destroy the One Ring.

It chronicles the life of Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox) and the creation of Helm's Deep, a fortified gorge that hosts the climatic battle in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers .

Warner Bros. Animation and New Line Cinema have released the first three images from the film, which you can see below.

One image shows Helm atop a pile of frozen bodies outside the walls of Helm's Deep; the second shows a vast army of Rohirrim standing fast against hordes of advancing soldiers; and the last shows a Mûmakil (those giant war elephants as seen in Return of the King) breaching the wooden walls of a fortress.

There’s definite visual continuity between The War of the Rohirrim and Peter Jackon’s legendary trilogy. That’s owing to key figures from those movies returning for this one. For example, Jackon’s co-writer Philippa Boyens is a producer on The War of the Rohirrim , while Warner Bros. and New Line are back to oversee production.

The War of the Rohirrim is due out this December in theatres, but that’s not our only excursion to Middle-earth. The Rings of Power season 2 is expected to release some time before that on Prime Video. There’s also a third project: Andy Serkis is to return as Gollum in a new Lord of the Rings film .