Unexpectedly, Stephen Colbert has found his post-Late Show job within the Lord of the Rings universe. The comedian has been tapped to pen a new Tolkien movie, alongside Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee, which will be the second of two upcoming films in the longstanding fantasy franchise.

Colbert joined filmmaker Peter Jackson to announce the news, stating: “The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship [of the Ring] that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Colbert said in the video posted to social media. “It’s basically chapters ‘Three Is Company’ through ‘Fog on the Barrow-downs,’ and I thought, Oh wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?

“And I started talking it over with my son Peter, who’s also a screenwriter, and we worked out what we thought would work, especially as a framing device for that story,” Stephen Colbert continued. “It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call, but about two years ago I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it, and ever since then, the two of us have been working with the brilliant Philippa Boyens on how to develop this story.”

The film, with the working title The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, will come after Lord of the Rings: Hunt for Gollum, which is in development from director Andy Serkis.

Shadow of the Past‘s synopsis reads: “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.”

Before then, The Hunt for Gollum from Warner Bros.’ New Line will be released in cinemas on December 17th, 2027.