The first Middle Earth anime, ‘The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim‘, lands on Netflix almost a year and a half after its discreet passage through theaters. The film that Warner swept under the rug a few weeks after its theatrical release is back on streaming, and its commercial journey is as bumpy as the fiction it narrates, set in Tolkien’s immortal creation.
The story takes place 183 years before the events narrated in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’. We will experience the fall of Helm Hammerhand, king of Rohan, against Wulf, a Dunlending lord who seeks to avenge the death of his father. The siege ends at the Tabernacle fortress, the bastion that generations later will be known as Helm’s Deep. In this way, an episode of the story of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ that Tolkien barely left outlined in the appendices is narrated in detail.
Behind the camera was Kenji Kamiyama, a Japanese animator who had previously taken the reins of other legendary franchises, as he did in ‘Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex’ and ‘Blade Runner: Black Lotus’. However, the bet did not work at the box office: the film became the worst premiere of the entire franchise, grossing barely about 4.6 million dollars. Its worldwide collection was around 20 million against a budget close to 30.
But… what is the reason for the release, somewhat secretly, of this film? Easy: retain rights. The making of ‘The War of the Rohirrim’ was accelerated so that New Line Cinema would keep the film rights to Tolkien’s work active while prepared new projects. The next step in that plan is ‘The Hunt for Gollum’, now with real actors, Andy Serkis directing and returning to play Gollum, produced by Peter Jackson and scheduled for release in 2027. The machinery continues to move forward, but in the meantime we have this wonderful animated appetizer.
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