NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Colbert, famous devotee to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, is co-writing a “Lord of the Rings” movie with his son.
Warner Bros. announced early Wednesday that Colbert will script “The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past” along with series veteran Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee, Colbert's son. Producer Peter Jackson revealed Colbert's involvement in a social media video that introduced a “very special partner” on the film.
“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,” Colbert told Jackson. “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.”
“Shadow of the Past” will come after Andy Serkis' upcoming “The Hunt of Gollum,” which is set to arrive in theaters next year.
Colbert said that a few years ago, while talking with his son, he thought of a potential framing device for the film, which follows a new adventure for Sam, Merry and Pippin 14 years after the passing of Frodo.
“You know what the books mean to me, and what your films mean to me,” Colbert said. “But 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.”
“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?’” added Colbert.
Colbert's “The Late Show” on CBS is to air its last episode on May 21 after the network announced it was canceling the late night show last July.
FILE - Late night talk show host Stephen Colbert arrives at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) — Below Cleveland, in a subterranean world many surface dwellers don’t know exists, miners extract a crucial winter mineral — salt.
The Whiskey Island salt mine, owned by food giant Cargill, helps supply road salt across the Northeast and Great Lakes, where a colder, snowier-than-usual winter has driven demand. Many municipalities exhausted supplies that typically last through spring, said Cargill spokesperson Emily Tangeman.
“Our teams have been working overtime since September to support customers across the snowbelt,” Tangeman said, noting that early, persistent winter weather boosted demand across the industry.
The mine beneath Lake Erie, one of the world’s largest, produces 3 million to 4 million tons (2.7 million to 3.6 million metric tons) annually, although that can fall short of demand in especially harsh winters.
Located 1,800 feet (549 meters) underground, it's accessed from Whiskey Island, an industrial area on the shore right beside downtown Cleveland. The mine opened in the 1960s and operates year-round, with salt extracted by drilling and blasting through vast tunnels formed from an ancient inland sea that dried up millions of years ago.
Inside, the mine is a maze of roughly rectangular caverns with chalky white walls and ceilings that extend for miles. It’s dimly lit and often pitch-black beyond the glare of headlamps and floodlights. Heavy machinery and conveyer belts rumble as small ATVs whisk miners around.
Maintenance superintendent George Campbell said operations are continuous, with downtime used for upkeep and repairs to keep production steady. Cargill said it is prioritizing shipments to ensure salt reaches the areas of greatest need as winter lingers in some regions. Frequent smaller storms also increase usage, Tangeman said, requiring repeated salting and creating logistical challenges.
A return to harsher conditions across the Eastern U.S. meant some cities — including Boston; Bangor, Maine; and Ithaca, New York — shivered through their coldest seasons in more than a decade. And winter weather is still not over in some parts of the country, so it’s not over in the Cleveland mine, either.
Campbell said there’s still decades of salt left to be extracted.
“I think that we have enough reserves to continue to keep people working for a long time,” Campbell said.
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.
A seagull flies past piles of the finished product, de-icing solution - rock salt - at the Cargill Cleveland salt mine on Whiskey Island before being distributed by truck, rail and boat to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana and Minnesota, in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
The absolute darkness of the mine is broken as supervisor Andrew Adkins uses a headlamp to lookover a map of drilling sites at the Cargill Salt Mine, 1,800 feet below the surface of Lake Erie, in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
The salt, formed 440 million years ago, is mucked up and loaded onto a conveyor belt 1,800 feet below Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Salt pillars, left behind for support during mining, line the tunnels in the Cargill salt mine in, 1,800 feet below the surface of Lake Erie on Whiskey Island in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Relief holes are drilled into a face in the Cargill salt mine, 1,800 feet below the surface of Lake Erie, in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
