Stephen Colbert's Lord of the Rings Sequel Could Finally Settle the Frodo vs. Sam Hero Debate for Good

Well, this is definitely the kind of big, weird Middle-earth news that makes you stop in your tracks: Stephen Colbert—yes, that Stephen Colbert from late-night TV—is making a new Lord of the Rings movie set after Return of the King. If you’ve spent even five minutes around hardcore Tolkien fans, you know how touchy folks get over new stories in Middle-earth. Just look at the heated arguments swirling around The Hunt for Gollum (coming in 2027) for proof. But Colbert’s project, which skips past the big trilogy ending and goes deep into the Fourth Age, is on a whole other level of risky.

Wait, Colbert Is Doing What Now?

Let’s get one thing straight: Tolkien himself barely explored what happened in the years after Sauron fell. He fiddled with story ideas in the appendices, and even started (then abandoned) a sad sequel called The New Shadow. So of course, some fans are asking the obvious: 'Why does Stephen Colbert think he should pick up where Tolkien himself bailed out?' Strangely enough, this project isn’t quite that. Colbert’s movie is supposed to dig into scenes and characters from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring that Peter Jackson skipped in his films—plus some bits from the appendices and Tolkien’s old notes. Bottom line: we’re getting Tom Bombadil (finally), the shenanigans on the Barrow-downs, and a return to some deep-cut Hobbit lore.

So What’s This Movie Actually About?

Here’s the official blurb:

Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo - Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.

Yeah, that 'long-buried secret' line? My bet is, it points to the creepiest bit in The Fellowship of the Ring that the movies totally skipped: the Barrow-wight sequence. That’s when Frodo and the rest of the gang get dragged underground by a wight, are knocked out cold, and almost die—except for the fact that Frodo, in one horrifying, claustrophobic moment, almost abandons his friends and bails with the Ring. He thinks about it. Seriously. It’s a nasty dilemma, and yet, it’s also a huge insight into Frodo’s character—a scene so dark that maybe it should have a whole movie built around its fallout.

Also, about that 'fourteen years after the passing of Frodo' bit: even Tolkien never gave us an exact date for when Frodo dies, or if this is supposed to mean fourteen years after he heads off to Valinor. It’s not totally clear what stretch of time we’re dealing with here, but you get the idea—it’s set in the shadow of Frodo’s absence, with his old friends trying to process everything he went through.

It’s Not Just a ‘Lost Hobbit Adventure’

This sounds less like a bombshell twist or 'Sauron came back, again' (thankfully), and more like an elegy for Frodo—an attempt to really, finally understand what he suffered in order to save Middle-earth. Elanor, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are (in this version) on a journey to understand the price Frodo paid, and why he left, by unearthing what he kept hidden even from them. It’s heavy stuff, and honestly, kind of daring for a franchise movie.

Who Was the True Hero—Frodo or Sam?

Let’s be real: the debate over who the real hero is—Frodo or Sam—has been raging in message boards and convention hallways forever. The movies themselves have done a lot to put Sam on a pedestal (which, to be fair, he absolutely deserves), and Tolkien himself called Sam the 'chief hero' in one of his letters (Letter 131). But, like most things Tolkien said, that’s way more complicated than it looks at first glance.

• Sam as 'chief hero': Tolkien once clarified (in a different letter—Letter 192), Frodo’s failure to throw the Ring in the fire was basically 'impossible' for any mortal. The real test wasn’t that final moment, but whether Frodo could get the Ring there at all. If anything, Frodo’s story is about resisting evil as best as a mortal can—and winning by showing mercy to Gollum, not sheer willpower.
• Sam’s heroism: Sam is the humble, earthy underdog who’s never tempted by power because he never truly bears it. That’s precisely why he gets the book’s (and movies’) most heartwarming moments. But, as Tolkien argued, the real tragedy is that nobody could ever be pure with the Ring for long.

Colbert, by the way, is squarely in the 'Sam is the real hero' camp—he said as much (with a well-timed crack about Frodo not being able to throw the Ring in the fire, much less his own fireplace) in a 2016 bit on The Late Show. But however you slice it, there’s more nuance here than most superfans like to admit—both Sam and Frodo are heroic, but in totally different, complicated ways.

What’s Really at Stake In Colbert’s Shadows of the Past?

The real big idea here isn’t to pick a winner in the Sam vs. Frodo contest, or give us another high-stakes apocalypse. It’s to dig up that silent, suffocating moment in the Barrow-downs—where Frodo could’ve turned his back on his friends and didn’t, because of who he was—and use it to show what true heroism and sacrifice in Tolkien’s world actually add up to. It’s messy, it’s tragic, and, if Colbert can pull it off, it’s the kind of Tolkien story that could finally put the 'Who’s the true hero?' debate to bed for good.

Will any of this work? It’s bold, it’s risky, and trust me—the next round of Tolkien fan debates is going to get very loud. But if Colbert’s taking us back into corners of Middle-earth that never made it to the big screen (and adding a few philosophical curveballs while he’s at it), I say: let’s see what happens.