10 Movies That Could Be Made In Middle-Earth After The Hobbit

7. The Scouring of the Shire

What's the story? The former pastoral idyll of the Shire has become a grim industrial landscape. Under the influence of evil wizard Saruman factories have sprung up, sheriffs enforce a rigid police state and abuse their powers and orcish ruffians overrun the area. Thanks to their experience serving with the rulers and armies of Gondor and Rohan, Pippin and Merry organise a hobbit resistance, win the Battle of Bywater, defeat Saruman and save the Shire. Why should it be filmed? If Tom Bombadil is the main character from The Lord Of The Rings left out of the movie, then the Scouring of the Shire is the main plotline that doesn't appear (except for in a vision in the Mirror of Galadriel), so this film would provide fans something they may feel that they missed out on. It would be one of the few unused Tolkien narratives that would allow story time in the Shire and the use of both hobbit characters in general and the cast of The Lord Of The Rings specifically. Given the humble home county hobbits are the thing that grounds the story away from the big high fantasy stuff, it would definitely be good to include them in a new film. This would also be one of the few options for a sequel rather than yet another prequel. Why shouldn't it be filmed? Jackson's existent version of The Lord Of The Rings excludes this episode and sees the hobbits coming home anyway, so the plot would have to contrive some way of having these events occur at a later date (not to mention bringing Saruman back to life!). An entirely Shire set sequel would be appealingly small scale in some ways, but its lack of the epic scope of the other films would be likely to put both studios and audiences off.