Updated

Updated · Fox News · Sep 16

Stephen Colbert Says Leaving Late Night Ended Daily 'Cup of Poison' After May Show Finale

Updated

Updated · Fox News · Sep 16

Stephen Colbert Says Leaving Late Night Ended Daily 'Cup of Poison' After May Show Finale

Q: After escaping the draining daily news cycle, what mysterious movie project has Stephen Colbert been secretly writing during his retirement?

Stephen Colbert has been writing a new **“Lord of the Rings” film**, tentatively titled **“The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.”** In interviews after leaving *The Late Show*, Colbert said he spent the summer writing a movie, and later confirmed that the project is a *Lord of the Rings* screenplay he is developing in New Zealand with his son **Peter McGee** and longtime Tolkien screenwriter **Philippa Boyens**. Public reporting says the film is intended to draw from material in **“The Fellowship of the Ring”** that was not used in the original movie adaptation. Colbert has described the work as a full-time job and said he has been careful not to reveal plot details because of nondisclosure agreements, even joking that he refused to tell Steven Spielberg anything about it. So the “mysterious” retirement project was not a random secret script: it is a major Tolkien-related feature film, with the working title **“The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.”**

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Sep 16

Stephen Colbert told Jimmy Kimmel he is happier and healthier since "The Late Show" ended in May, saying he took the chance to stop thinking about the news every day.
On "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" he likened the old job to drinking a "cup of poison" and being lowered into a radioactive pool, describing the strain of turning daily political news into comedy.
Kimmel said Colbert looked like "a different person" when they met at the Emmys, where Colbert's former CBS program won Outstanding Variety Series on Monday.
At the post-Emmys press line, Colbert said late-night TV remains "funny" and "vital" but repeatedly dodged a question about whether Trump was responsible for CBS canceling the show in 2025.