Stephen Colbert finally finds his post-Late show gig: Deets inside

Stephen Colbert, an avid reader of ‘Lord of the Rings’ novel, embarking on his dream project

By Madiha Akhtar March 25, 2026

Stephen Colbert finally finds his post-Late show gig: Deets inside

Stephen Colbert has recently found his new gig after the culmination of The Late Show on May 21.

The late-night host is all set to write the next Lord of the Rings movie, which is produced by New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures.

Dishing out details, movie-maker Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy, made the surprise announcement in a video on social media on March 24.

Peter revealed that Stephen is a die-hard JRR Tolkien fan and even made a small cameo in Jackson’s 2013 film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug alongside his wife and children.

Interestingly, Deadline reported that the movie will be titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past and will be written by Stephen along with Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee.

In the clip, Stephen shared that he was inspired to “develop a story after rereading The Fellowship of the Ring,” while thinking about chapters three to eight, which were not included in Peter’s adaptation.

“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,” said the late-night host.

Stephen revealed how he decided to write a novel for the second time, stating, “I thought, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies?”

“It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it … and I could not be happier that [Warner Bros.] loved it,” added the late-night host.

Meanwhile, the second upcoming movie in Lord of the Rings universe will release on December 17, 2027.