Cancellations aren’t slowing this Hollywood A-lister down.
The voyages of the USS Athena will sadly come to an end after Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s second season, but one of the show’s stars already has an A-list gig lined up. Actor, comedian, and late night talk show host Stephen Colbert is slated to write a new Lord of the Rings movie. Colbert made the announcement on social media in a video (below) along with Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson.
Colbert spoke about his love of LOTR and joked about his upcoming availability via Instagram by saying: “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 […] It turns out I’m going to be free starting this summer.”
"Isn't that fortunate," Jackson added, and the two laughed.
Most notably, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will come to an end this May, which frees him up to focus solely on The Lord of the Rings script. Plus, season 2 of Starfleet Academy recently wrapped filming, and Colbert won’t be required to provide further voice work as the Digital Dean of Students because the latest Star Trek series was officially canceled on March 23.
Colbert’s script focuses on chapter 3 ("Three is Company") through chapter 8 (“Fogs on the Barrow-downs") from JRR Tolkien's 1954 novel The Fellowship of the Ring. Deadline also reports that Colbert will co-write the screenplay, which is currently titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, with Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee.
Although I wasn’t a huge fan of Colbert simply voicing the Digital Dean of Students on Starfleet Academy, I will certainly miss hearing his hilarious announcements on the USS Athena, which were often directed at the off-screen misadventures of Krebs and the cadet's Talaxian Furfly at the Academy.
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Live long and prosper, Trekkies!