Lord Of The Rings Coming To Build A Bear Workshop

Middle Earth is set to invade your local mall, as characters from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and its acclaimed New Line Cinema adaptation from director Peter Jackson are coming to the Build-A-Bear Workshop. You can pre-order adorable stuffed bears decked out to look like Frodo, Gandalf, and Gollum (at least), with a program rolling out soon. Currently, Build A Bear is encouraging fans who want first crack at the new collection to sign up for their email mailing list so that they can be informed when the street date is coming, and what other Lord of the Rings-inspired merch might be part of the collection.

These are not entirely new editions, from what the website is teasing, but a limited-edition reissue of earlier Lord of the Rings collaborations that have long since sold out. Billed as "one collection to rule them all," here's how the Build A Bear website describes it:

"Middle Earth is set to invade your local mall, as characters from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and its acclaimed New Line Cinema adaptation from director Peter Jackson are coming to the Build-A-Bear Workshop. You can pre-order adorable stuffed bears decked out to look like Frodo, Gandalf, and Gollum (at least), with a program rolling out soon. Currently, Build A Bear is encouraging fans who want first crack at the new collection to sign up for their email mailing list so that they can be informed when the street date is coming, and what other Lord of the Rings-inspired merch might be part of the collection."

According to Nerdist, fans who order the complete set (at a price of $65 per bear), will get stuffed animals that also come pre-loaded with five sounds from the films, including some of the most iconic lines from the franchise. Just think about how fun it would be to have a cuddly teddy-Gandalf telling you that you "shall not pass."

Interest in the franchise has never really waned, with Jackson's three-movie adaptation of The Hobbit happening almost equidistant between the end of the original film trilogy and the beginning of the planned Amazon TV series, which is reported to be the most expensive original production that the streaming giant has ever undertaken.