'Lord Of The Rings' Producer And Writer Reveals The Ideal Tolkien Story She Wants To Adapt

Apr 09, 2025

Philippa Boyens, one of the screenwriters on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as one of the producers on the animated War of the Rohirrim, film revealed which Tolkien story would be her ideal to adapt.

Back in December, while promoting The War of the Rohirrim, Boyens spoke with Collider where she was asked what her ideal Toklien story to adapt would be if she had no restrictions.

Boyens answered, “I love the story of Lúthien and Beren in The Silmarillion. Also, there are threads of it, obviously, in The Lord of the Rings, but you have Aragorn and Arwen, which is such a beautiful love story, but before that, there was Lúthien and Beren.”

“Also, it's an earlier age, and it's a kind of more mythic age. You've got some serious monsters — I love monsters — that you could bring into that storytelling. But also, she is such an incredible character, the character of Lúthien, and so there's some of her DNA, obviously, in Arwen and Galadriel, but even in these human characters, I think — that courage to go and face down the thing that you're most terrified of,” she concluded.

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While Boyens shared that the story of Lúthien and Beren would be her ideal story to adapt, she had previously teased other stories that she and her team at Warner Bros. were looking at adapting.

Back in February 2024, she spoke with Nerd of the Rings and briefly discussed the Angmar war between the Witch-king of Angmar and the Men or Arnor, but she said a story with dragons was at the top of her list.

She said, “There’s some others in there that, this one in particular. Because everyone thinks of dragons as very heated, and hot, and fiery. There you go. There’s a hint. Let’s see if anyone gets what I’m meaning. Because there are other types of dragons out there.”

After Nerd of the Rings states, “There are wars involving dragons,” Boyens responded, “Yes, or not necessarily wars involving dragons. There are other types of worms.”

She added, “I always though that’s interesting and actually not outside of the world or the precursors to the Rohirrim. I’ve always thought that was an interesting story and very Tolkien.”

Boyens is likely talking about the War of the Dwarves and Dragons that took place between T.A. 2570 to 2589. The war drove Durin’s Folk from the Grey Mountains to the Lonely Mountain. In Appendix B Tolkien detailed that in TA 2570 “About this time the Dragons reappear in the far North and begin to afflict the Dwarves.” In fact, Dáin I ends up being slain by a dragon.

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While those are things she and her team are exploring, they are working on The Hunt for Gollum film, which is being directed by Andy Serkis, who is also expected to reprise his role as Gollum.

There is also a second film in the works, which was originally believed to be a continuation of The Hunt for Gollum, but Boyens clarified in October that it is a separate project. She told Empire, “I can tell you definitively it isn’t two films! That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we’ve begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being The Hunt For Gollum, the second one still to be confirmed.”

A number of Tolkien enthusiasts might have been excited to see an adaptation of Lúthien and Beren back in December. However, following the release of The War of the Rohirrim coupled with the brand damage inflicted by Prime Video’s The Rings of Power, that excitement has most definitely waned.

But it might be for the best as the story remains untainted by creators and producers who seek to project their own agendas on to Tolkien’s work in what seems to be an effort to malign and destroy it.