Middle-earth came to San Diego Comic-con once again this year.
TheOneRing.net booth was a hub of activity. Guests included actor Jed Brophy who was Nori in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movies, as well he played multiple characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Rings of Power. He regaled us with many fascinating and funny tales about his on-set experiences as he signed autographs. Graham McTavish, Dwalin in The Hobbit movies, stopped by for a visit and a chat, as did multiple Oscar winner Sir Richard Taylor of WETA Workshop. Nerd of the Rings, also shared the booth along with some lore with all who were curious. A variety of Middle-earth cosplayers dropped by, displaying incredible talent and hard work.
Cliff Broadway, Sir Richard Taylor, Jed Brophy
Kellie Rice
TORN created several new T-shirts for the event: Bilbo from The Hobbit animated film smoking a pipe – the first official merchandise from that movie; “The Prancing Pony Club”, featuring a pink pony with a glittery silver mane and tail designed by TORN’s Green Dragon, and The Happy Hobbit’s “Seasons of the Shire”. In addition there were coins from The Shire Post, lovely fabric products from Oscha Slings, and stained glass window clings from Geek Orthodox Art.
A huge hit of the con was the Middle-Earth Enterprises’ booth, an over-sized recreation of the Inn of the Prancing Pony in Bree where all who entered felt as small as a Hobbit. This was the first official Lord of the Rings booth at SDCC! Guests were greeted by a life-size Bilbo from the Rankin Bass The Hobbit animated film and received a poster of a painting by Jerry VanderStelt depicting the Great Goblin from the same film. Then it was time to grab a pint, actually, a huge wooden stein that made you appear Hobbit-size in the photo taken while seated on a ginormous bench. It was great fun, and both the photo and the poster are memorable keepsakes. If you happened to get a photo of yourself at the Inn, please post and tag it #mehobbitsdcc2025 so we can see your hobbity selves.
Next door to The Prancing Pony, Dark Horse (who built the life-sized Bilbo) showcased new vinyl toys of Bilbo and Gollum.
We had two panels this year. On TORN’s Friday’s Panel, TORN Tuesday’s Justin Sewell and Clifford Broadway (Quickbeam) and TORN staffer Nicole Roberts (Rasputin) kicked off the conversation by asking how the audience felt about using AI to de-age actors for the upcoming The Hunt for Gollum movie. Surprisingly, most of the audience voted against it. The Happy Hobbit’s Kili, Kellie Rice, related her cozy experience previewing WETA Workshop’s Tales of the Shire video game. TORN staffers included Cathy Udovch (Garfeimao) giving an update on the Comic-con cruise; Josh Long (Elessar) talking about collectibles; and Nancy Steinman (Mithril) with news about Tolkien’s “new” story The Bovadium Fragments which will be released as a book this fall.
Back on the floor of the con, the WETA Workshop booth returned to SDCC this year! They brought their “most significant collectible to date,” according to founder Richard Taylor – a 43” tall sculpt of the entire Fellowship on the stairs of Moria. It was incredible to see all nine characters, plus Gollum, together in one masterful piece filled with “action,” each figure interacting with the others in their own unique way. Another new thing at the booth was the lack of glass to shield all the other sculpts, something Richard chose to do so that fans could take glare-free photographs. (Jed Brophy mentioned on Sunday’s TORN panel that this would have provided a challenge for his character Nori the Dwarf who was a bit of a thief.)
Several WETA artisans were in attendance, and I was happy to have the opportunity to speak with Tree Harris, one of the costumers who worked on The Hobbit and Avatar: The Way of the Water. She demonstrated creative tricks for designing memorable costumes. This year, WETA shared a booth with Legend Story Studios, a New Zealand-based trading card game design studio, and they created a life-sized winged sculpt of a character from one of the card games for the con.
TORN’s Sunday panel was moderated by Justin. On the panel was Richard Taylor who told us about the nerve-wracking audience reaction to the first reveal of a scene from The Fellowship of the Ring at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, and how he got to listen to Christopher Lee sing opera every morning. He also talked about and showed video of WETA’s new game Tales of the Shire (now available), in which you play a Hobbit and grow your own vegetables, make meals, and create community. He said the game was created with the deepest of love and enthusiasm.
Jay Komas, Beol Miller, Matt Graf, Jon-Paul Dumont
Middle-earth Enterprises, who are the stewards of the entertainment rights for film, stage, video games, merchandising, and events for much of Tolkien’s literary work were also on the panel. John Mayo spoke about creating the Prancing Pony booth. Fredrica Drotos, who worked on rights with The Saul Zaentz Company before it was purchased by the Embracer Group (soon to be renamed Fellowship Entertainment) is looking forward to long-term, generational development. Jay Komas said all their projects revolve around what fans want. It feels like Tolkien’s universe is in good hands.
Next year is the 25th anniversary of the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, and it was revealed Warner is busy planning “special things”. Cliff advocated for the unicorn edition of the film which would include all the scenes that were shot but cut. And Jed Brophy said he was excited that The Hunt for Gollum, which will be directed by Andy Serkis, will be going back to New Zealand for filming.
Beol Miller, director of Middle-earth Adventures, told us about The Brandywine Festival, the first officially licensed Middle-earth Live Action Role-Playing camping event which will take place first in Kentucky and later in the UK, where you can LARP as a Hobbit for 5 days. Matt Graf from Nerd of the Rings is helping research lore for the event, like the discovery that in the East Farthing, Hobbits often wore Dwarven-made boots, and he will be NPCing a boot merchant during the event.
Return to Moria developer Jon-Paul Dumont talked about getting fan feedback to keep making the video game better and for development of its expansion. He previewed a clip from Return to Moria: Durin’s Folk. In this new version, you will be able to recruit Dwarves from every clan to move into Moria to help rebuild it, to craft and trade with other people of Middle-earth, and discover whole new areas of story.
Fredrica and John also talked about recreating The Brandywine Star, an early Tolkien newsletter that used to get snail-mailed to fans, as a digital edition, but possibly even as a paper quarterly.
Emotions ran deep in the audience when Cliff spoke about community and our better selves. “We are the ones who are best equipped to take care of one another in this life,” he said, referencing when Sam helped Frodo up the side of Mount Doom.
Outside of the convention center, a highlight was a Moot organized by the new SoCal Iquendi Smial (chapter) of the Tolkien Society. The gathering of like-minded Tolkien fans and scholars was the perfect opportunity to meet new folks, geek out, and do some deep dives into Middle-earth/Arda lore.
For a year when there were no new film or TV releases in this fandom, there were still plenty of Middle-earth events to keep fans happy. With the upcoming Season 3 of The Rings of Power, next year should be even more exciting. Hope to see you there!
