Stephen Colbert’s Surprising Career Change Revealed After ‘Late Show’ Cancellation

Stephen Colbert‘s The Late Show is set to wrap up in May, but the late-night host already has his next job lined up—and it’s taking him all the way to Middle Earth.

As announced on social media on Tuesday night (March 24), Colbert will be writing a new Lord of the Rings movie alongside his son, Peter McGee, and Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote the original franchise. The comedian revealed the news alongside director Peter Jackson in a video shared across various social media channels.

“In honor of Tolkien Reading Day and the destruction of the One Ring, we bring you a special announcement,” the caption of the post read. Jackson first shared an update on Lord of the Rings: Hunt for Gollum, which is currently in development from director Andy Serkis. He then introduced Colbert to deliver the blockbuster news.

“The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship [of the Ring] that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Colbert explained. “It’s basically chapters ‘Three Is Company’ through ‘Fog on the Barrow-downs,’ and I thought, ‘Oh wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story.'”

 

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Colbert said he wanted to make something that was “completely faithful to the books” while also staying true to Jackson’s movie adaptations. He discussed the idea with his son, who’s also a screenwriter, and the pair figured out how the idea would work.

“It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did,” he told Jackson. “You liked it enough to talk to me about it, and ever since then, the two of us have been working with the brilliant Philippa Boyens on how to develop this story.”

Colbert, who is a big-time Tolkien fan, said the team at Warner Bros. were also behind the idea. “I could not be happier to say that they loved it, and so that’s what we’re going to be working on,” he stated.

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The film, which currently has the working title The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, will see Colbert working alongside his son, Boyens, Jackson, and Fran Walsh.

“Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began,” reads the official synopsis.

In July 2025, CBS announced that The Late Show would end in May 2026. While the network cited financial reasons for the decision, some critics called the cancelation politically motivated after Colbert called out Paramount for settling a lawsuit with President Trump amid its merger with Skydance, which required government approval.

“I believe that there is a name for that. And it would be: big fat bribe,” Colbert said on The Late Show days after the $16 million settlement. Two days later, CBS canceled his show.