Stephen Colbert Is Pivoting From Late Night TV to Writing 'Lord of the Rings' Movies

In just a few months, Stephen Colbert's time as the host of The Late Show will be at an end. The show itself is at an end, and many have wondered what Stephen is planning to do when his time as a TV host is over.

While some may have assumed he'd start a podcast or pursue acting, it seems that Stephen is instead planning to spend some time focused on one of the things that has been a great passion of his life: The Lord of the Rings. The comedian is set to co-write a new Lord of the Rings movie. Here's what we know about the project.

According to reporting from Deadline, Colbert is set to write a new Lord of the Rings movie tentatively titled Shadow of the Past. He'll be writing the project alongside Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee. The film, which is based on the eighth chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, will be set 14 years after Frodo's death, and will follow Sam, Merry, and Pippen as they retrace the very first steps of their journey out of the Shire.

Meanwhile, Sam's daughter Elanor discovers a dark secret and comes to realize that the War of the Ring was almost lost before the hobbits' journey had ever really begun.

“You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me, but the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in the Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Stephen said in a video announcing the project.

The comedian added that he wanted to “make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies."

Stephen has long been known as a Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien obsessive, and has been unafraid to nerd out about it on his show on more than one occasion. He even has a cameo in one of The Hobbit movies. Now, he's becoming even more involved in the world of Middle Earth.

We don't know exactly when Shadow of the Past might hit theaters, but it seems like it will be at least a few years. The movie will be the second new installment in the franchise, following next year's The Hunt for Gollum, which is similarly adapting parts of the books that were not part of Peter Jackson's original trilogy.

It's unclear how successful these franchise fillers will ultimately be, and we don't know if any members of the original cast will return to reprise their roles for Shadow of the Past. What we do know, though, is that Stephen Colbert is going to have a job when his late-night career ends, and it's probably not the one most of us would have expected.