Bored of the rings? No more Tolkien, says Peter Jackson – but Ian McKellen suspects otherwise

Director says that the likes of The Silmarillion out of bounds for film-makers unless Tolkien estate has change of heart, as Hobbit star McKellen later predicts

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Future fantasy blockbusters based on the works of JRR Tolkien are unlikely to ever hit the big screen unless the iconic author’s estate mounts a dramatic U-turn on rights, Peter Jackson has said.

Speaking at a press conference in London a day after the world premiere of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the New Zealand film-maker confirmed the film was likely to be his final trip to Middle-earth.

“The Tolkien estate owns the writings of Professor Tolkien. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were sold by Professor Tolkien in the late 60s, the film rights,” Jackson said. “They are the only two works of his that have ever been sold … So without the co-operation of the Tolkien Estate, there can’t be any more films.”

While The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are by far Tolkien’s best-known fantasy works, the author also wrote numerous other stories about Middle-earth. The most famous is the posthumously published The Silmarillion, a collection of histories and tales written to flesh out Tolkien’s mythos prior to the time of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.

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