The Lord of the Rings will be reviving Christopher Lee’s performance as Saruman in the upcoming anime feature film, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim in a cool new way. The Lord of the Rings will be making its anime debut later this December with a full feature film telling a story that’s never really been explored in the franchise before. Teasing that it will feature the franchise’s very first female lead, The War of the Rohirrim is going to have a lot to offer for The Lord of the Rings fans. Including a return from the late Christopher Lee to the film universe.
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The Lord of The Rings: The War of The Rohirrim producer Philippa Boyens spoke with TheOneRing (as transcribed by ScreenRant) about the upcoming anime feature film and revealed that Christopher Lee would be providing the voice for the animated version of Saruman. While the actor himself sadly passed away years ago, the producer explained that with the permission of Lee’s late wife, they were able to use older, previously unheard voice recordings from The Hobbit for Lee’s return as Saruman in the new film.
Christopher Lee Returns as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings
“When we reached out to Gitte, Lady Lee, who’s sadly no longer with us… she said the thing that I think Peter [Jackson] felt in his heart, which was that Sir Christopher would have wanted this,” Boyens explained. “And so we went into his records, I got to go back and hear his voice, not just doing the lines, but talking to us as we were recording them. And we based it on a line from The Hobbit, which is ‘Are you in need of assistance, my lady?’ A version of that line.” From there, Boyens explained how they searched through multiple takes to find a way to use in the actual film.
“And we thought, okay that’s a line, we can see how many takes he did of that. Can we use it? Can we find a new read on it and change it up a little bit. And our brilliant guys did that. But it is an authentic bit of Christopher Lee performance that it’s based on.” Boyens had explained that they likely would have cast a soundalike if they weren’t able to dig into these audio recordings, but was glad to ultimately make it work. “To be honest, we didn’t [know] if we could find that, and so just as sort of, like, due diligence, let’s see if there is a cast-alike as someone who can do the voice out there. Now, I know the internet is going to say, of course, ‘There’s a million people who could have done Chris Lee’s voice,’ but, do you know what? I don’t think so. I’m so glad we used his own voice, and it’s fantastic.”
What Is The War of the Rohirrim?
We’ll be seeing Saruman again soon enough as The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will be hitting theaters beginning on December 13th. Currently clocking in at two hours and 30 minutes, the new film is directed by Kenji Kamiyama for New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Animation with animation production from Sola Entertainment. Based on characters originally crafted by J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Sam Register, Sam Register, Carolyn Blackwood and Toby Emmerich serve as executive producers.
The script comes from Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will also star the likes of Gaia Wise stars as Hèra, Luke Pasqualino as Wulf, Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand, Shaun Dooley as Freca and more.
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