What’s crazy though, is that Christopher Lee will actually be reprising the role of the White Wizard in the movie—and this is thanks to archival recordings from The Hobbit. This was confirmed by writer Philippa Boyens at the New York Comic-Con (via The One Ring):

“We went into his records, I got to go back and hear his voice. Not just doing the lines, but talking to us as we were recording. We based it on a line from The Hobbit which is, ‘are you in need of assistance my lady?’ something—like a version of that line.”

The line actually comes from this scene in Desolation of Smaug where Galadriel and the rest of the immortals take on the Nazgul:

I’ll admit, I wasn’t a fan of when they decided to “Frankenstein” Carrie Fisher’s performance in The Force Awakens and repurpose it for The Rise of Skywalker, but I would be more forgiving if it was just for the voice and the project was animated.

Boyens did say that they thought of getting someone to sound like Christopher Lee, but it’s great that they found some way to bring him back without having to use some kind of AI trickery. I guess Corey Burton will have to just stick to Clone Wars for now.

Catch Christopher Lee in Lord of the Rings: War for the Rohirrim when it comes to cinemas on Dec. 11.

As per Variety, WB has landed a deal with Embracer Group to produce ‘multiple films based on the beloved J.R.R. Tolkien books.’ We don’t have any specific details of what projects could be in development, but it has been said that original trilogy heads Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens have been ‘kept in the loop every step of the way.’

With the most popular of Tolkien’s books having already been adapted, a lot of fans wonder what the new films could possible be about. Amazon Prime Video had already choses to go back to the Second Age of Middle-earth when it came to their Rings of Power series, so where could these spinoff properties with WB lead? Solo movies for Aragorn or Gandalf? What about an attempt to tell a story after the events of The Lord of the Rings?

With a franchise as beloved as Lord of the Rings, I can already imagine a lot of people will not be pleased whatever direction the new films would go, but as long as they embrace the core themes of the original property like the preservation of nature and love for the importance of fellowship, I think there’s a good chance to usher in a new era of LOTR content.

No release date has been set for WB’s new LOTR films, but you can catch Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.