“I just hope it’s the same motivating factor”: Elijah Wood Has a Legit Concern for the New Lord of the Rings Movie Coming in December

For the followers of the lore of Lord of the Rings, Elijah Wood aka Frodo Baggins was burdened with the responsibility to tend to the fate of Middle-earth and its occupants. It was a journey that traversed Tolkien’s landscape, charted territories unknown to man, and overcame hurdles that would have defeated even the bravest soldiers. To Wood’s hobbit, this journey entailed everything.

However, with time, the journey ultimately came to an end, fans returned to their pitiful lives, hobbits retired to the shire, and all was the same as before – with one exception. The tragedy that pervaded the air of the tale of Lord of the Rings refused to let go of its grip over the population of Middle-earth and forget the sacrifice that echoed through the atmosphere for ages to come.

In fact, the resounding love that still remains trapped within the memories of the people has woken Warner Bros. up. The studio now refuses to let the franchise slip away after its successful run in the 2000s as fans gear up for a reboot of Peter Jackson’s beloved trilogy.

Elijah Wood Grows Wary of the New Lord of the Rings Reboot

Elijah Wood helped bring Peter Jackson’s vision for the Lord of the Rings franchise alive via the spectacularly constructed trilogy of films. The proprietary right to the films and the IP rings the strongest when it comes to the blue-eyed actor. Perhaps that is the reason why it seems so strange and uncomfortable for him to face the news of the Warner Bros.-sanctioned reboot.

In a GQ interview, Elijah Wood revealed his not-so-subtle reaction to the news after David Zaslav’s shocking announcement to revive the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter franchises. For Zaslav, his reasoning was quite simple – it seemed, frankly, stupid to let such powerful and potent IPs collect dust in the WB vaults since the 2000s when they could be remade to attract a new audience.

For Elijah Wood, however, the news was not so easy to digest, even though the reasoning made sense from a commercial Hollywood perspective:

“I’m fascinated and I’m excited. I hope it’s good. I’m surprised – I don’t know why I’m surprised because, of course there would be more movies. Obviously at the core of that, is a desire to make a lot of money. It’s not that a bunch of executives are like, ‘Let’s make really awesome art.’ And, again, not begrudging anybody because, of course, it is commerce. But great art can come from commerce. So those two things are not mutually exclusive.

But Lord of the Rings didn’t come out of that place. It came out of a passion for these books and wanting to see them realised. And I hope that that is ultimately what will drive everything forward with whatever these subsequent movies are. I just hope that it’s the same motivating factor at its core, whenever they hire a screenwriter and a film-maker – that it is with reverence for Tolkien’s material and enthusiasm to explore it.”

The need for a reboot of Peter Jackson‘s classic trilogy makes the work of Elijah Wood seem redundant and its essence utterly lost to the ebb and flow of time. Despite the iconic status of the three films, the years have made it so that an entirely new generation seeks to find not just the mythology of Tolkien’s work but also relevance, representation, and reliability.

Lord of the Rings Reboot Signals the Doom of Hollywood?

For the better part of the past decade, the film and television industry has severely suffered from a lack of creativity and imagination. The spirit of innovation has abandoned Hollywood as studios and creators have turned to old classics to adapt them for the modern audience rather than come up with a shred of an original idea.

In rare cases, adaptations like Andy Serkis‘ Planet of the Apes franchise and Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune have hit the mark in their emotional and creative arcs. But the same cannot be promised for Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings which are already beloved classics transcended by time and relevance. A reboot of such established and venerated IPs might just spell the doom of Hollywood rather than revive it for a new demography of fans.

Lord of the Rings trilogy is available for streaming on Max.