The director addressed working with the host on the upcoming project for the first time at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.

Peter Jackson says Stephen Colbert pitched new LOTR movie before Late Show was canceled, reveals more details

The director addressed working with the host on the upcoming project for the first time at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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May 14, 2026 1:59 p.m. ET

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Peter Jackson and Stephen Colbert on 'The Colbert Report' in 2012. Credit:

- Peter Jackson spoke about working with Stephen Colbert on a new *Lord of the Rings* movie for the first time at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.

- Jackson said Colbert's work on the film "helped him process" the cancellation of *The Late Show,* which was "rather shocking."

- Colbert is co-writing *The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, *which will follow the upcoming Andy Serkis–directed *Gollum.*

Peter Jackson is just as excited for Stephen Colbert's upcoming *Lord of the Rings *movie as the late-night host is.

The franchise director opened up about working with Colbert on *The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past,* which will follow the Andy Serkis–directed *Gollum*, while attending the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where the director was honored with a Palme d'Or on opening night.

"He phoned me up a year ago — before he knew [*The Late Show*] was going to finish — and said, 'I don't know if you're interested, but I've got an idea for a Tolkien movie based on the books that I think would be really good,'" Jackson told *Variety* at the event, addressing how Colbert came to co-write the project.

Jackson told the outlet that he liked Colbert's pitch enough to set him up with his long-standing collaborator Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote *The Lord of the Rings* and *The Hobbit* trilogies. They worked together for a year on a treatment.

Stephen Colbert and Peter Jackson at Comic-Con International in 2014.

Kevin Winter/Getty

A Warner Bros. release revealed the official synopsis of the film in March: "Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam's daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began."

As Jackson explained to *Variety*, Colbert showed real dedication to the process, even traveling to New Zealand to be closer to the project's team. Then, in July 2025, in the middle of the writing process, CBS announced that *The Late Show *would end the following May. Its final episode is set to air on May 21.

"We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire* The Late Show* franchise at that time," CBS said in a statement at the time. "This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount."**

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Jackson said at Cannes that the cancellation wasn't what the show or its host "deserved," but suggested that having a project to focus on "after he got fired" was a boon for Colbert.

"I think Steven's actually really happy — I think it helped him process [something that] what was rather shocking," he told *Variety*. "So it was like, okay, one day he's going to be a late-night talk show host, and the next day he's going to be a Tolkien scriptwriter."

Stephen Colbert hosts 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' in 2022.

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS

The film will be Colbert's third collaboration with Jackson. He first had a small role in *The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug* in 2013, and later directed Jackson and *The Lord of the Rings* stars Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood in the 2019 short film *Darrylgorn*, set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.

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Colbert recently shared his excitement for *Shadow of the Past* in an interview with *The Hollywood Reporter *earlier this month. "I mean, there's no reason to," Colbert said when asked why fans should entrust him with Middle-earth. "And there's no value in me addressing that because all you can do as — I'll use a loaded term here — an artist is follow your heart and the craft that you have learned to try to turn this into something that is not fandom, but drama."

The comedian also pointed out that he's lucky because he doesn't "have to do this alone," as he's penning the film's script with his son Peter and Boyens. "I have a great Sherpa in Philippa Boyens, who cares about it in the same way I do," he said. "And I will just say that every moment has been a joy so far."

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