Lord of the Rings will reprise Christopher Lee’s performance as Saruman in the upcoming animated feature film, The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim in a cool new way. Lord of the Rings will make its anime debut later in December with a full-length feature film telling a story that has never really been explored in the franchise before. Teasing that it will feature the franchise’s first-ever female lead, The Rohirrim War will have a lot to offer for Lord of the Rings fans. Including a return of the late Christopher Lee to the world of cinema.

The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim producer Philippa Boyens spoke with TheOneRing (as transcribed by ScreenRant) about the upcoming animated feature and revealed that Christopher Lee would provide the voice for the animated version of Saruman. While the actor himself sadly passed away years ago, the producer explained that with permission from Lee’s late wife, they were able to use older, previously unreleased voice recordings of The Hobbit for Lee’s return as Saruman in the new film.

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Christopher Lee returns as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings

“When we contacted Gitte, Lady Lee, who is unfortunately no longer with us… she said what 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 was able to go back and hear his voice, not just doing the lines, but talking to us while we were recording them. And we based it on a line of The Hobbitwhich is “Do you need help, my lady?” » A version of this line. From there, Boyens explained how they went through several takes to find a way to use them in the film itself.

“And we thought, okay, this is a line, we can see how many takes he did of it. Can we use it? Can we find a new reading on this and modify it a bit. And our brilliant guys did it. But it’s an authentic part of the Christopher Lee performance it’s based on. Boyens had explained that they probably would have created a similar sound if they hadn’t been able to dig into those audio recordings, but were happy to finally make it work. “To be honest, we didn’t know if we could find that, and so, for the sake of due diligence, let’s see if there’s a similar cast that can do the voice there. Now, I know the Internet is going to say, of course, “There are a million people who could have done Chris Lee’s voice,” but you know what? I don’t think so. I’m so glad we used his own voice, and it’s fantastic.

What is the Rohirrim War?

We will see Saruman again soon enough because The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim will be released in theaters from December 13. Currently running 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 created by JRR Tolkien, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Sam Register, Sam Register, Carolyn Blackwood and Toby Emmerich serve as executive producers.

The screenplay comes from Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim will also feature Gaia Wise stars like Hèra, Luke Pasqualino as Wulf, Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand, Shaun Dooley as Freca and more.

via TheOneRing, HT – ScreenRant