Watch The Opening 8-Minutes of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM

Warner Bros. Animation has released the opening eight minutes from its awesome-looking Middle-earth anime epic The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. 

The 8-minute clip opens with a man caught in a blizzard who has gone through a horrific ordeal. The survivor tells the kingdom’s leader that "he" has killed them all with his bare hands. When asked who killed them, he reveals… Helm Hammerhand. These clip focuses on the dread and superstition of these men in Middle-earth.

This film looks like it’s going to be great! This clip shows that writing strong and engaging and I’s excited about experiencing this film and seeing how the story plays out.

Set 183 years before the events chronicled in the original trilogy of films, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim tells the “fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan. 

“A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg—a mighty fortress that will later come to be known as Helm’s Deep.

“Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Héra, the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction.”

New Line Cinema’s original anime feature The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim comes from award-winning filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series).

Screenwriter Philippa Boyens, who wrote Peter Jackson’s live-action films, said: “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim works for anime because it is character-driven and contained within its own world, two things that work beautifully with Japanese storytelling, and there’s no better storyteller in this medium than Kenji Kamiyama.”

The rest of the voice cast includes Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand the king of Rohan, Gaia Wise as Héra of Rohan, Luke Pasqualino as Wulf, Lorraine Ashbourne (Netflix’s Bridgerton), Yazdan Qafouri (I Came By), Benjamin Wainwright (BBC One’s World on Fire), Laurence Ubong Williams (Gateway), Shaun Dooley (Netflix’s The Witcher), Michael Wildman(Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), Jude Akuwudike (Beasts of No Nation), Bilal Hasna (BBC’s Sparks), and Janine Duvitski (ITV’s Benidorm).

With Kamiyama at the helm, the original feature is being produced by Boyens, from the screenwriting team behind The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Trilogies, alongside Jason DeMarco and Joseph Chou, who, in addition to their many separate animation projects, collaborated on the Blade Runner: Black Lotus series.

The executive producers are Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, Sam Register, Carolyn Blackwood and Toby Emmerich. 

The screenplay is by Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews,Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou, with a story by Addiss & Matthews and Boyens, based on characters createdby J.R.R. Tolkien. 

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim be released theatrically worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 13th, 2024, and internationally beginning 11 December 2024.