New Lord Of The Rings Movie Sets Box Office Record For Peter Jackson's Universe

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, the Kenji Kamiyama-directed The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is projected to earn a 3-day opening weekend of $5 million, debuting at No. 5 at the domestic box office. This is a dramatic step down from the live-action installments in the Peter Jackson franchise, some of which rank among the highest-grossing movies of all time, earning it the lowest-grossing opening weekend of the entire Peter Jackson franchise.

The previous lowest debut was The Fellowship of the Ring's $47.2 million, which still came in at more than 9 times the debut of the new animated movie.

What This Means For The War Of The Rohirrim

The Lord Of The Rings Movie May Be Better Off Than It Seems

The only theatrically released Tolkien adaptation to have a worse opening than the War of the Rohirrim release is the 1978 Ralph Bakshi movie The Lord of the Rings, which debuted with a scant $626,000. However, the movie only opened in 31 theaters compared to Rohirrim's roughly 2,500. It eventually earned $32.6 million, which makes it the lowest-grossing installment in the franchise, even when adjusted for inflation, but that total still made it a financial success considering its slim $4 million budget.

While The War of the Rohirrim cost significantly more than the 1978 title at roughly $30 million, that is a slim total for a modern animated feature and means that it likely only needs to earn $75 million in order to break even in theaters. While this may be outside of its capabilities, given this disappointing debut, holiday season animated releases have a tendency to be slow-and-steady performers. Previous examples include 2023's Migration, which opened to just $12.4 million but eventually grossed $299.8 million worldwide.

Our Take On The War Of The Rohirrim Opening Weekend

The Movie Still Has An Uphill Battle

While it could become a success, the new animated movie still has several road blocks ahead of it. For one thing, the slow-and-steady holiday season animated movies tend to be family fare. Migration was much more oriented to young audiences than the Tolkien adaptation, which is rated PG-13 and comes with a hefty 2 hour and 14 minute run time. The same is true of slow-burn animated releases outside of the holiday frame, such as Pixar's Elemental, which premiered in June 2023.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim reviews have also been lukewarm, earning it a 51% Rotten Tomatoes score, which could indicate that it won't earn much of a word-of-mouth boost. This makes it the worst-reviewed outing in the Peter Jackson franchise and the second-worst LOTR adaptation overall, as the 1978 movie earned a 49% score.

Will The War Of The Rohirrim Affect Future Lord Of The Rings Movies?

Its Underperformance Might Be A Blip

What the opening weekend of The War of the Rohirrim has ultimately proven is that not every project attached to the Lord of the Rings title will become an instant critical and commercial success. This has been borne out in a slightly smaller way by the Prime Video prequel show The Rings of Power, which earned a 38% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes in season 1. However, both seasons have Fresh scores from critics and season 2 has an improved 60% audience score in addition to the show being one of the Top 5 most-watched series on the platform.

Although The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is the first major box office stumble for the Peter Jackson franchise, this does not necessarily indicate that the upcoming The Hunt for Gollum will suffer in the same way. Rohirrim is something of an outlier as both an anime property and a prequel lacking conspicuous overlapping characters with the flagship branch of the franchise. The 2026 live-action movie lacks both of those demerits, and its timeline placing it alongside Fellowship of the Ring will likely fuel major nostalgia for ticketbuyers and boost its prospects considerably.

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Source: Deadline

Set before the events of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is an animated action-adventure fantasy film that follows a King of Rohan named Helm Hammerhand. When his home comes under siege by Dunlendings, Hammerhand prepares himself and his allies to fight back against them, with the war leading to the eventual establishment of Helm's Deep.

Release Date December 13, 2024

Runtime 134 Minutes

Director Kenji Kamiyama

Studio(s) New Line Cinema , Warner Bros. Animation , Sola Entertainment

Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Pictures