Elijah Wood aims some cautious optimism at those new hobbit movies
Wood, on the new Lord Of The Rings movies: "Great art can come from commerce. So those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
Elijah Wood has been keeping busy since… Well, hell, since, like, North, right? But Wood’s busy right now, specifically, with Yellowjackets, where he’s bringing that wide-eyed energy to his role as Walter, new companion to Christina Ricci’s Misty in the show’s modern-day timeline.
Even so, Wood’s not so busy that he can’t field a few questions about the oliphaunt in the room: The recent revelation that Warner Bros. intends to revive the Lord Of The Rings IP to make “multiple” new movies set in Middle-Earth. Asked about the news in a recent profile by GQ, retired Frodo Wood was—what else?—pleasant and quietly optimistic about the potential for the films.
“I‘m fascinated and I’m excited,” he said. “I hope it’s good. I’m surprised—I don’t know why I’m surprised because, of course there would be more movies.” But he also has no illusions about the mercenary nature of the decision: “Obviously at the core of that, is a desire to make a lot of money. It’s not that a bunch of executives are like, ‘Let’s make really awesome art.’ And, again, not begrudging anybody because, of course, it is commerce. But great art can come from commerce. So those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
Wood finishes up his thoughts with a wider pitch on why he thinks Peter Jackson’s films resonated so well with viewers, quietly drawing a line between those films and these new ones:
But Lord of the Rings didn’t come out of that place. It came out of a passion for these books and wanting to see them realized. And I hope that that is ultimately what will drive everything forward with whatever these subsequent movies are. I just hope that it’s the same motivating factor at its core, whenever they hire a screenwriter and a filmmaker—that it is with reverence for Tolkien’s material and enthusiasm to explore it.