The Lord of the Rings franchise has been relatively quiet ever since The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies released in 2014. But soon things will kick off in a big way when Amazon unveils their billion-dollar TV show based on Tolkien’s books. That’ll be followed by Warner Bros and New Line Pictures The War of the Rohirrim, an anime feature helmed by filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama, intended as a companion piece to the two trilogies.
Their show will be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, so millennia before Peter Jackson’s iconic movies. Not much is known about the specifics of the plot and characters, but immortals like Sauron, Galadriel, and Gandalf were active during this time. These shows should cause a renewed interest in the movies, especially as Fellowship of the Ring celebrating its 20th anniversary later this year.
Now we’ve been hearing some interesting new details about what went on behind the scenes, with one particularly amusing reveal that a nude Hobbit scene was considered for The Two Towers. The anecdote comes courtesy of Dominic Monaghan, who recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Here’s how it would have gone down:
“Here’s the thing. There was almost nudity in the movies. Philippa Boyens…she wrote a scene, because we’d been doing some kind of gags and winding people up…[and] she said, ‘Oh, it’s a new scene we’re filming next week, with the Ents. When Merry and Pippin are up Treebeard, he gets afraid and shakes his branches, which makes you guys fall, and as you hit all the branches on the way down, by the time you hit the ground, you’re naked. And Merry turns to Pippin and says, ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’ And Pippin says, ‘Hold me, Merry.’”
It’s fairly obvious Boyens was kidding around about this scene, but if it had existed it’d have likely ignited a nuclear bomb in the horny Hobbit fandom. But, sadly, it seems this never got further than a joke. Even so, Monaghan said he’d have definitely agreed to it, if only to show off his “fantastic” ass on the big screen.
But it’s worth considering nudity in The Lord of the Rings, particularly as some fans are worried that Amazon’s Middle Earth might be too influenced by HBO’s Westeros in terms of adult content. A group called ‘Catholic Memes’ have started a petition saying that Tolkien’s world “does not need to be stained with gratuitous nudity” and have already attracted 32,000 signatures. Whether they’ll succeed remains to be seen, though we should get a vague idea when Amazon drops the first trailer.
Season one of The Lord of the Rings is expected on Prime Video in 2021, with a second season following in 2022.