Once a writer’s greatest work has already been adapted enough times, the only thing left is to make a movie about their life instead. That’s why we’ve got movies about P.L. Travers, A.A. Milne, J.M. Barrie. The latest famous writer who uses initials instead of a name and is getting a movie about his life is J.R.R. Tolkien, with Deadline reporting that Nicholas Hoult is “in early talks” to play the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit creator in a movie appropriately named Tolkien.
The film is set to be directed by Dome Karukoski from a script by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, and the Deadline story says it will examine “the formative years of the orphaned author” as he looks for “friendship, love, and artistic inspiration” alongside a “fellow group of outcasts.” Eventually, Tolkien and his friends must venture into the dangerous land of Mordor and scale Mount Doom so they can destroy an evil ring, a dramatic event that largely inspired some of Tolkien’s work.