Talk show host Stephen Colbert is well-established as one of the world’s preeminent scholars of the works of author J.R.R. Tolkien (well, at least in the pop culture realm). He reads Tolkien’s Elvish language, has interviewed Smaug, and is such a big fan that he even scored an extremely brief role in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug as “Laketown spy.” Colbert recently took his show to New Zealand, where he met back up with director Peter Jackson and pitched him a whole new Lord of the Rings spin-off trilogy about his character, who Colbert imagines is revealed to be Aragorn’s hotter twin brother.

Colbert’s Lord of the Rings Spin-Off

A brief side note: I love how the audience goes totally quiet during the voiceover reading out “There’s no movie I won’t blurb” from Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers, because they have no idea who that is or what it means. Travers is known throughout the industry as a notorious “quote whore” – this piece at eFilmCritic explains why – but that deep cut reference clearly fell on deaf ears for Colbert’s studio audience.

Shooting some of those epic wide shots must have been a dream come true for Colbert, since his Desolation of Smaug cameo only lasted six seconds and didn’t give his character much to do. Even though we’ll never see the full Stephen Colbert Presents Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings Series The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug’s “The Laketown Spy” Is Darrylgorn In Darrylgorn Rising: The Rise Of Darrylgorn The Prequel Of Part One: Chapter One, this trailer is enough to get the point across. The host is in the middle of a series of New Zealand-themed episodes on The Late Show right now, so tune in if you’re interested in seeing more of him traipsing around the beautiful country.

You’ve gotta love Colbert’s passion. This dude clearly knows his stuff when it comes to The Lord of the Rings, and I have to wonder if he’s going to be involved in some capacity with the upcoming Amazon series. (I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lock down a quick cameo in that, as well.) Just watch him explain some super obscure Tolkien mythology to his studio audience from a few years ago:

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