Lord Of The Rings Anime Prequel Looks Killer In Its First Trailer

Screenshot: Warner Bros. / Kotaku

Oliphaunt battles. A killer squid monster. Brian Cox as a proud and angry old king of Rohan. The first trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim has it all, including the reveal of a December release date.

The anime prequel to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy will be out December 13, 2024 and it looks great. Narrated by Miranda Otto who played Éowyn in the movies, War of the Rohirrim takes place 183 years prior to Frodo’s journey to destroy the One Ring and tells the story of Rohan’s fight for survival against a rival nation of Dunlendings.

Here’s the trailer:

The footage shows Helm Hammerhand (Cox) meeting with a rival king to discuss the marriage of their children, but when insults are hurled and honor is tarnished, a messy brawl leaves the Dunlending king dead. His son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) pledges revenge while Hèra (Gaia Wise), Hammerhand’s daughter and Wulf’s would-be betrothed, tries to navigate political terrain dominated by men. The resulting battle will double as an origin story for Helm’s Deep, the stronghold made famous in the climax of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

The War of the Rohirrim was originally supposed to come out earlier this year but hit delays in 2023 as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike. It’s directed by Kenji Kamiyama, best known most recently for the animated series Ultraman, Star Wars: Visions, and Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Instead of going with the divisive rotoscoping method Ralph Bakshi used for his original 1978 animated The Lord of the Rings movie, War of the Rohirrim was first made in 3D, with artists then using that to translate scenes into traditional 2D animation.

The movie is only coming to theaters at the moment, with no streaming plans on Max or any other service currently announced. More details are expected in October at this year’s New York Comic Con.