The new Lord of the Rings film The War of the Rohirrim has scored a meagre opening on its first weekend in cinemas, following a spate of poor reviews.
The new animated fantasy film, which features the voice of the late Christopher Lee, is set 183 years before the events of the main Lord of the Rings trilogy and tells the story of Helm Hammerhand, a king of Rohan, whose family is forced to defend their land against an army of Dunlendings.
It is adapted from the appendices of Tolkien’s novels and also features the talents of Brian Cox, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto, Shaun Dooley and Gaia Wise, with Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex‘s Kenji Kamiyama directing.
Despite this, the film has failed to grab the attention of fans, with Variety reporting that it has made just $4.6m (£3.64m) domestically, in 2,602 US cinemas. The film does, however, have a modest $30m (£23m) budget, so any box office failings aren’t expected to be a disaster for its studio New Line Cinema.
That being said, The War of the Rohirrim, has now become the lowest-rated Lord of the Rings film ever on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics combining to give it a 51 per cent rating.
The critics’ ratings on Rotten Tomatoes for all of The Lord of the Rings films are as follows:
Fellowship of the Ring - 92 per cent
The Two Towers - 95 per cent
The Return of the King - 94 per cent
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - 64 per cent
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 74 per cent
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - 59 per cent
Audiences, although small, have been far more receptive, giving it an 83 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while it received a lukewarm “B” on CinemaScore.
Meanwhile, Variety reported that the film was “fast tracked” so that New Line Cinema didn’t lose the film adaptation rights to the novels, ahead of a new series of films being launched in 2026.
In May, it was announced that Peter Jackson is returning to produce a new film, alongside the original production team of Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Andy Serkis, who played the digitally animated Gollum in the original trilogy, will be directing and starring in the project, with the first film in the planned series tentatively titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
