New Line’s new animated movie, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, is moving from its April 12, 2024 release date to Dec. 13 next year.
The move stems from a chain-reaction of Warner Bros re-dating today, spurred by Legendary Entertainment’s Dune: Part Two going from Nov. 3 this year to March 15, 2024, which then pushed that financier and producer’s other title, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire from that date to April 12, 2024. Dune: Part Two had to move had to shift on account of the unavailability of its cast to promote during the actors strike.
War of the Rohirrim will now face off on its new December date against Sony’s reboot of The Karate Kid.
The anime feature, directed by Kenji Kamiyama, is set 183 years before the events chronicled in the original New Line Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those Peter Jackson movies, in addition to his Hobbit trilogy, have always played the December year-end holiday period.
The movie centers around the fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the mighty King of Rohan, a character from the J.R.R. Tolkien book’s appendix. Succession actor Cox will provide the voice of that protagonist.
A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg – a mighty fortress that will later come to be known as Helm’s Deep. Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Hera, the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction.
The voice cast includes Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Miranda Otto, Lorraine Ashbourne (Netflix’s Bridgerton), Yazdan Qafouri (I Came By), Benjamin Wainwright (BBC One’s World on Fire), Laurence Ubong Williams (Gateway), Shaun Dooley (Netflix’s The Witcher), Michael Wildman (Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), Jude Akuwudike (Beasts of No Nation), Bilal Hasna (BBC’s Sparks) and Janine Duvitski (ITV’s Benidorm).
War of the Rohirrim is executive produced by Oscar winner Philippa Boyens, from the screenwriting team behind The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, and produced by Joseph Chou (Blade Runner: Black Lotus TV series). The writing team of Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou have penned the screenplay from a script by Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews, based on the book The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. The team of creative collaborators returning from The Lord of the Rings” trilogy also includes Oscar winners Alan Lee and Richard Taylor, along with Tolkien illustrator John Howe.
Sony has yet to re-date Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the sequel to this summer’s $687.8M grossing global hit, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Beyond the Spider-Verse was originally scheduled for Easter weekend, March 29-31, 2024, but is temporarily undated, also due to actors’ availability to record their voices on account of the SAG-AFTRA strike.