The franchise is making too much money to walk away from it…
…and Tolkein left behind an extensive history of Middle Earth, so is it safe to say the next trilogy will deal with all the goings on of Sauron coming back to power during the sixty years the ring is in the Shire?
Maybe the question to ask is how many trilogies can we get from those sixty years?
Without a major change in the desires of the Tolkien Estate, there will be no more movies made from Tolkien’s works, unless you’re talking about remaking The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien sold the movie and TV rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to movie producers in 1969. That sale did not include any other of Tolkien’s works. The estate has made it clear that they do not wish to sell the rights to any other of Tolkien’s works.
A major change like a really old guy finally dying?
You don’t consider death to be a major change? In any case, the desires of the people that control the estate are that no further rights will be sold. Should those desires change or should the people who control the estate change to someone else who feels differently, the decisions about the rights may be different.
I would say the “extensive history of Middle Earth” that the OP mentioned is too fragmented and incomplete to form a coherent movie, unless you invent large portions of it. The Silmarillion was only published by Tolkien’s son after he died, and it was intended to be shaped into 3 smaller stories that were never fully finished. Of these, The Children of Hurin was probably the closest to completion (it was released as a stand alone novel), and is an awesome story. It’d be my candidate as the work to be made into a movie. But holy crap is it tragic, and since the main point of the story is a curse that Turin and his family is under, there’s no way you can tweak it to make it more “upbeat”.
I guess you could string together some of the events and characters from the Silmarillion together in a film. There are some great stories there. The king of the Balrogs and the Balrog army, Beren and Luthien stealing a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown, the fall of Gondolin, the necklace which started a war between Elves and Dwarves, etc. But it’d be like trying to make the entire Old Testament bible into a movie. There’s too much fragmented ground to cover.
I don’t think there was much written about the 60 years between the Hobbit and LOTR and Sauron’s “goings on”, so any movie in that vein would be pretty much made up from scratch. And there wouldn’t be a resolution or massive battles, since Sauron was mostly concerned with building up his army and biding his time. What would you depict? Sauron ordering around henchmen for 3 movies? Minor skirmishes with Gondor? Smeagol’s capture and torture in Mordor? Aragorn could provide some material, he was pretty busy during that time, but again, there’s just not that much to draw from.
My impression is that most of the older generation of Tolkien’s support not selling the film rights. So you’d need more than Chris Tolkien to go to Mandos before the estate falls to the younger generation, who might be more interested in selling.
Plus, it’d be a pretty hard film to make. And it doesn’t have the same built in fanbase of The Hobbit or LOTR. And by the time the film rights get sold, I the recent films will have faded in the rear view mirror.
So my WAG is we won’t ever see a big-budget film with material from the Silmarillion.
You could mine more material from the appendices at the end of ROTK for a movie. Stuff about the early days of Gondor including the kinstrife, and eventually the end of the line of the king in Gondor (wouldn’t mesh well with the history provided in the movie ROTK tho). Also, the invasion of the wainriders, and the first ride of the Rohirrim from the far north, past Lothlorien, to come to come to Gondor’s rescue and be given the land of Rohan for their own.
Heck, the fall of Minas Ithil and its transformation into Minas Morgul, along with Minas Anor becoming Minas Tirith would be an interesting story.
Aragorn’s early days, including his adventures as Thorongil, warrior of Gondor and favorite of Ecthelion, Steward of Gondor and envy of Denethor would also be interesting. It included side trips to Rohan along with adventures alongside Eomund, Eomer’s dad.
Also, Gandalf and Aragorn’s hunt for Gollum, his eventual capture and imprisonment by the elves, and subsequent escape would be of interest.
One could make a movie out of the adventures of King Dain Ironfoot and King Brand son of Bain son of Bard of Dale, fighting in the War of the Ring, to prevent the destruction of their kingdoms.
Saruman’s fall, including his forging of his own rings, his hunt for the One Ring, and his first use of the palantir could be used also.
Lotsa stuff could be expanded into a movie adventure without having to touch the Silmarillion, UT, or HOMES.
Note I say that it could be done, not that it should be done.
I could see PJ attempting to film Balin’s attempt to take back Moria. Lots of battle scenes.
If PJ goes anywhere near Middle Earth again he will be tracked down and beaten to death with a bag of po-tay-toes. Not that I will have anything to do with it. 
I was, er, will be, working that day. 
I’m still waiting for the rest of the Jack Black remake.
So, if Tolkien sold the movie rights to LOTR and The Hobbit, it does not mean that the movie producers own the rights to the characters for film use, do they? Or could they just write a new screenplay about the adventures of the kids of Aragorn and Arwen or something like that?
How about a film of ‘‘The Scouring of The Shire’’ ?
The first part of another epic trilogy. To be followed by Shire II: Scour Harder and Shire III: Lobelia’s Revenge.
Has that stopped PJ before?
As much as I hate the fact that there are only 4 complete books (2 if you want to be a stickler) written about Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien, that’s all there is. I would hate to see his vision turned into fanfic by someone else - besides we had Terry Brooks for that (spit). ( a mini-seies is being made of his derivative schlock by the way.).
I searched for years for another LOTR, and while I found lots of good books there is only one LOTR.
As for films, I’ll happily stick with rewatching PJ’s LOTR. One viewing of his Hobbitses each was fun, but enough.
Just my two cents
I’m okay with the Middle Earth movies we have so far; I’m ready for them to move on to something different. Dragonriders of Pern, say, or the Wild Cards series.
Could they re-cut the Hobbit trilogy into one decent (paced, story-driven) movie?
Did you all miss this press releasefrom 2008?
Jackson has expressed interest in doing a film version of The Illiad. I think that could be a good fit for his style.
Melbourne writes:
> Could they re-cut the Hobbit trilogy into one decent (paced, story-driven) movie?
Someone has: