Lord of the RingsGets Animated in Action-Packed First Trailer forThe War of the Rohirrim

Mar. 15, 2025

Middle-earth is back on the big screen — this time as anime.

On Aug. 22, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. debuted the first trailer forThe Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which expands the horizons of late author J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world with both its animation style and its setting: the story takes place 183 years before the events of the originalLord of the Ringstrilogy.

Miranda Otto, years after bringing Rohan native Éowyn to the big screen in directorPeter Jackson’s Oscar-winning live-actionLord of the Ringsfilms, reprises her role, here as a narrator.

Image from The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

“It took [Otto] maybe about 10, 15 minutes standing at the microphone and you could feel the voice coming back and the character coming back," producer Philippa Boyens told PEOPLE in June.

Of the movie’s anime style, she said, “There are certain things I don’t think we could have necessarily done — or they would have made it extremely expensive — elements to the storytelling that you could do in anime in a way that was kind of breathtaking.”

“Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Héra, the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction.”

Other Tolkien adaptations on the horizon include Jackson producing theAndy Serkis–directedThe Lord of the Rings:The Hunt for Gollum, scheduled for a 2026 release and starring Serkis again as the fiendish Gollum. The second season ofThe Lord of the Rings:The Rings of Power, set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, premieres on Prime Video Aug. 29.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrimis in theaters Dec. 13.

source: people.com