We hear via Deadline that Warner Bros. Animation is putting back the release of its animated feature film The War of the Rohirrim to December 2024. The new release date is December 13. Previously it was to open worldwide on April 12.
The seven-month delay is seemingly part of a cascade started by the shift of the release of Dune: Part 2 to March 15 — a slot previously occupied by Godzilla X Kong. GxK’s one-month delay has subsequently forced WOTR into a new date.
Deadline notes that the only other movie set for a December 13 2024 release is Sony’s The Karate Kid.
However, other reasons both sentimental and practical might have contributed to WOTR being pushed back seven months.
First, for Warner Bros. and New Line Cinemas, releasing films from the Middle-earth milieu is virtually a tradition now. That ought to play well with the fandom. Producer Jason DeMarco certainly seems to think it’s a lucky one.
Source: Jason DeMarco twitter account. Supplied by TimB
Second, it’s no secret that the last several years have seen numerouswell-credentialled anime series experience production crunches that have caused substantial release delays. Animator overwork and schedule slippage now seem so regular that insiders are asking themselves whether this situation is simply “the new normal”.
Further, film director Kenji Kamiyama and Sola Entertainment (the animation studio) CEO Joseph Chou commented recently at Annecy Film Festival about the weight of work that remained on The War of the Rohirrim and that they were seeking additional talent to help with the film.
While they mostly seem done, Kenji and Joseph have a lot more to do, they’re still deep in the production process. Kenji seemed stressed! “Probably the biggest film he’s ever worked on”. Kenji kept talking about the challenge of it, and was clearly still thinking deeply about “how he’s gonna finish this film.”
Joseph jokes about how the crew is going to have to work nights and weekends to finish this movie, which really bummed me out. Can we not normalize the brutal working hours in animation? I expect better tbh.
In that context, an extra seven months might also have been a prudent production decision.
About the author: Staffer Demosthenes has been involved with TheOneRing.net since 2001, serving first as an Associate News Editor, then as Chief News Editor during the making of the Hobbit films. Now he focuses on features and analysis.The opinions in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of TheOneRing.net and other staff.
We’ve made it to Episode 10 of this very fun podcast; and for our tenth episode, we have a super special guest. I’ve had the chance to chat with him over the years at Comic-Con, but having the amazing Sir Richard Taylor sit down for almost 90 minutes to talk about collectibles was beyond anything for Jim and me. We had a blast chatting; and in the episode, there is even a tease for a new collectible coming. We hope you have as much fun watching this episode as the two of us had filming it.
In this episode, the gang gets back together to chat about how our guesses from the last episode went, what we thought of the awesome stuff announced, and what we hope to see the rest of the year. We hope you enjoy watching and listening to our thoughts as the episode plays out.
This year, instead of a booth tour, we’re going to go on a tour of the things you could see at Comic-Con 2023 that were Middle-earth related. During this video, we stop at Jerry Vanderstelt’s booth to see the unveiling of Weta Workshop’s Master Collection piece as well as Jerry’s print that can be paired with it. We also stopped by the Diamond Select Booths to see the goodies both they and Weta Workshop had at this year’s show. We hope you enjoy the tour!
In our newest episode of the Collecting The Precious Podcast we sit down with Ben and new guest Ryan aka The Cyber Hobbit to talk about Comic-Con 2023. We chat about some recent releases and things we’d like to see come out during Comic-Con. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!
Our friends at Weta Workshop have been very busy since the start of 2023 with several new collectible items, both big and small, coming up for release. Today we’re going to talk about the collectibles coming from the 1:6th line of statues in both the limited and classic series line.
As you are aware the Last Alliance sequence has been getting some love with the amazing Sauron and Elendil collectible that is available for fans to purchase. Now we can add the fantastic-looking Gil-Galad collectible to the list of must have LOTR collectibles.
Weta has announced that Collectors can place their pre-order for Gil-Galad right now till July 5th at 2 pm PDT. This collectible of Gil-Galad, like many other items from Weta, will be a timed pre-order. You can pre-order this awesome-looking Elf for $699 with an estimated shipping date of quarter one of 2024.
If you’re a fan of the classic series of statues then you have two great options to place a pre-order for. As long time collectors would be aware, the classic series are 1:6 statues, but they’re open editions, so these will be available for a little longer so fans can make sure they have their funds ready.
The two new additions both come from the Amon-Hen sequence of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The first is a beautiful Frodo Baggins statue, where he is standing, hand open with the The One Ring lying on it, before he gets in the boat to leave The Fellowship. You can snag Frodo right now for $349 with an expected release date of 2024.
The other classic series collectible also from the same sequence in the film is Lurtz in that menacing walk we see him doing. Lurtz is a little more expensive than Frodo at $399 and has a release date of the end of this year.
This year, instead of a booth tour, we’re going to go on a tour of the things you could see at Comic-Con 2023 that were Middle-earth related. During this video, we stop at 
