Middle-earth is returning to our screens, in the form of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an anime co-produced by Warner Brothers Animation, their subsidiary New Line Cinema, and Sola Entertainment.

War of the Rohirrim will follow the deeds of Helm Hammerhand, a mighty king of Rohan who reigned 250 years before the events of Lord of the Rings. He gained renown among his people for his epic deeds against barbarian invasion and a devastating Long Winter, most notably in the fortress that would be known as Helm’s Deep, the site of the famous battle fought by Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli.

The deeds of Helm Hammerhand were first recorded in the Appendix of The Return of the King, written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in 1955.

New Line Cinema produced the live-action Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, while Sola Entertainment has produced anime adaptations of the Halo, Starship Troopers, and Blade Runner franchises.

Philippa Boyens, a co-writer of the live-action Middle-earth trilogies, will be a consultant, while Kenji Kamiyama will direct. He is best known for his work on multiple anime films and series, including Akira, Blood: The Last Vampire, and Ghost in the Shell.

This of course is not the first time the works of J.R.R. Tolkien have been adapted into animation. In 1977 Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment produced The Hobbit, then The Return of the King in 1988, a sequel to the 1978 Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi.

This project has been confirmed to be a companion piece to the live-action trilogies directed by Peter Jackson.
There is currently no known connection between War of the Rohirrim and the live-action prequel in development at Amazon Studios, which will focus on the events of the Second Age of Middle-earth, about 3000 years or more before the events of Lord of the Rings.

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