Whether we want it or not, we’re getting more Lord of the Rings. The press release that announced it read like the work of a cyborg. “The opportunity to invite fans deeper into the cinematic world of Middle-earth is an honour,” whirred the Warner Bros chatbot. “We are excited to partner with Middle-earth Enterprises and Embracer on this adventure.” The dull, unenthused syntax felt appropriate, but at the same time surprising. No one wants a raft of new Lord of the Rings content, after all. Many fans have already voiced their despair, still burned by three interminable Hobbit movies in which Martin Freeman wandered around poorly rendered cliff-sides looking confused. But to see a major Hollywood studio struggle to feign even a smidge of creative urgency to it all is something new. Instead, there will be more Lord of the Rings simply because there needs to be more Lord of the Rings. It is the modern status quo; a doddering, exhausted bit of intellectual property defined by its increasingly diminishing returns.
This is the new normal in entertainment. By now, IP’s chokehold on film and television is well-established, and not always inherently bad. The Last of Us was a video game and now one of the best things on television. Prime Video’s take on the bestselling novel Daisy Jones and the Six looks promising. John Wick: Chapter 4 is out next month, and what monster would say no to that? What is scary, though, is the gradual feeling that a number of long-in-the-tooth, big-screen franchises are becoming the walking dead – films that no one particularly likes any more yet feel compelled to see anyway. Call it obligation. Or nostalgia. Or a populace of deeply blockbuster-pilled people who can’t turn their noses up at the third Ant-Man film despite every instinct telling them they’ll hate it.
