By now, practically everyone is familiar with Peter Jackson’s adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ series and ‘The Hobbit’, which has its second movie, ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’, coming out next month. But how much do we really know about the man who originally wrote those stories? Probably not as much as we know about Biblo Baggins, but that may soon change as a new biopic is rumored to be in the works.
Middle Earth scholar David Gleeson and Peter Chernin of Chernin Entertainment are working on a project tentatively titled ‘Tolkien’ for Fox Searchlight. The film is set to explore the colorful life of the author from his time at Pembroke College to his career as a soldier during World War I and how that all affected him and his work.
Currently, there is no definitive biopic for the legendary writer, however, many attempts have been made such as ‘Mirkwood’, a look at Tolkien’s work as a code breaker during World War II. That particular project met with resistance from the notoriously private estate and it’s unclear whether they will cooperate with the most recent effort to tell this story, if they will at all. Regardless, Hollywood is still going to try it’s best to get this one off the ground.
Stories like this that give some insight into the creators of some of the most beloved stories of all time have been gaining popularity lately. Back in 2004, ‘Finding Neverland’ told the tale of ‘Peter Pan’ scribe J.M. Barrie and received a Best Picture nomination. More recently, Anthony Hopkins played the Master of Suspense as he worked on ‘Psycho’ in ‘Hitchcock’ and Tom Hanks is set to play Walt Disney next month in ‘Saving Mr. Banks’, an account of the story that brought P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins to the House of Mouse.
Are you interested in learning more about the creator of ‘Lord of the Rings’ in his very own biopic, ‘Tolkien’? Do you think that the writer’s estate will allow the filmmakers to move forward with the project when they’ve put a halt to so many in the past? With a trend that demands to be fed in Tinseltown at the moment, could it finally be time for Tolkien to stand front and center on the big screen rather than Frodo, Gandalf, and the gang? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: LA Times