Here’s some great news for those of you who still are a kid at heart! In a press release today, the LEGO Group announced that a new collection of LEGO sets based on the ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Trilogy and ‘The Hobbit’ movies will hit the shelves next year.

This multi-year agreement between Warner Bros. Consumer Products and LEGO Group will allow LEGO exclusive rights to develop build and play construction sets much like those already seen for ‘Star Wars’, ‘Batman’, and ‘Harry Potter’. According to the press release, LEGO will have access to the library of characters, settings and stories to produce toy sets that will completely coincide with the movies.

The LEGO version of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ sets are slated to be released sometime in June of next year with ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ to be released sometime in December to coincide with the release of the movie (just in time for the holidays!).

Jill Wilfert, vice president of licensing and entertainment for The LEGO Group states, “Our collaboration with Warner Bros. Consumer Products has delivered numerous worldwide successes in the construction toy aisle…introducing us to loyal audiences who love great stories, strong characters and the toys that they inspire. It’s particularly exciting to now be able to create sets based on the fantasy worlds and characters from THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and the two films based on THE HOBBIT, not only because we know they will foster collectability and creative play, but also because these are two properties that our fans have been asking us to create for years.”

If past LEGO versions of Warner Bros. films are any indications, it won’t be long before a LEGO video game of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ will also be released. And who knows, we may soon see a LEGO ‘LOTR’ animated version similar to the’ LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace.’

Either way, it’ll be a great set for young kids and hopefully it will lead them to read the actual books by J.R.R. Tolkien and not just rely on the movie versions for this epic tale. As the date of the ‘LOTR’ LEGO sets release gets closer, more information about them will be unveiled at their official site: TheLordoftheRings.LEGO.com.

So what do you think of this new addition to the toy aisle?