While Warner Bros. Discovery has announced its desire to exploit the license Lord of the Ringsthe animated film The Rohirrim War records first worrying figures…
The Lord of the Rings: a bad signal sent to Warner Bros?
For several years, the financial health of the Hollywood major Warner Bros. Discovery is rather bad… Very impacted by the Covid-19 crisis and bad strategic choices, the group has announced its strategy to regain its former glory: focusing on its strongest licenses, namely Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter et DC Comics. You will have understood, fantasy occupies a large place in Warner’s strategy! While the cable channel HBO, owned by the group, is working on numerous spin-offs of Game of Thrones (including the series A Knight of the Seven Kingdomsexpected for 2025) and on a reboot series of Harry Potter, Warner has announced several films set in the universe Lord of the Rings.
The first of these is the animated film The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrimdirected by Japanese director Kenji Kamiyama and animated by the Sola Digital Arts studio. Based on a short extract from the Appendices of Lord of the Ringsthe feature film tells us the story of Helm Hammarhand, legendary king of Rohan, and his daughter Hera, 200 years before The Fellowship of the Ring. The film was produced by Philippa Boyens, co-writer and producer of the trilogies Lord of the Rings et The Hobbit de Peter Jackson. The Rohirrim War also seeks to attract fans of the New Zealand director’s legendary trilogies, since the animated film marks the return of four actors and actresses to the world of Lord of the Rings.
Despite Peter Jackson’s praise, The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim does not seem to find its audience… Preceded by an unenthusiastic press and a sad record on review aggregators, the feature film does not seem to attract fans in theaters. This is what the figures for its opening weekend in the United States show us, where it collected barely 4.9 million dollars. We are far from the 84.6 million that the film earned The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey during its first weekend in the United States. The Rohirrim War throne in fifth position in the American rankingsbehind Vaiana 2, Wicked, Kraven the Hunter et Gladiator 2. (Alone The requirements et The Rohirrim War are new.) According to the site The Numbersthe film recorded $10 million in international revenue.
Source : Deadline
The domestic box office being the most scrutinized by Hollywood studios, the score of Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim is not encouraging and could be a bad signal regarding future films in the license. We remind you that Andy Serkis is working on the film The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollumproduced by Peter Jackson. Warner Bros. Discovery claimed that the production of The Rohirrim War had been somewhat rushed, in order not to lose the license rights Lord of the Ringsin accordance with the deal which binds the major to the rights holders of JRR Tolkien. Warner also seemed to be aware of the limits of its feature film : not only did the group allocate a budget of 30 million dollars for The Rohirrim Warbut in addition it was only distributed to 2,602 theaters in the United States. In comparison, Vaiana 2 still benefits from a portfolio of 4000 rooms and Gladiator 2 of 3224 rooms.
