Lord of the Rings Actors Are Trying to Save J.R.R. Tolkien's Home

The Lord of the Rings community is coming together to fundraise enough money to purchase the home where J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. According to the project's website, the goal is to turn the North Oxford house into "not a dry museum, but a homely house of continuing creativity" and will have "an engaging online presence to bring into the house's programme those who cannot travel to Oxford." Middle-earth actors Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, and John Rhys-Davies, as well as songwriter Annie Lennox, took part in filming a video detailing the fundraiser.

Unlike other writers of his stature, there is no centre devoted to J.R.R. Tolkien anywhere in the world. Yet. @ProjNorthmoor https://t.co/pzMg8Yk2t2 pic.twitter.com/jx2r5MVbcw

— Ian McKellen (@IanMcKellen) December 2, 2020

  The campaign was launched on December 2 by novelist Julia Golding. She negotiated a deal with the owner of the house to give her three months to raise the funds needed to buy it, according to Entertainment Weekly. Approximately 6% of the $6 million goal has been raised, according to the donation page on the project's website. Only $5.3 million is needed to purchase the house itself, but extra money will go towards restoring Tolkien's garden, building a Hobbit hole, and creating "Smaug's lair for pipe smokers." Tolkien lived in the house from 1930 to 1947. A FAQ on the fundraiser's website said that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were written in that house and Tolkien's children grew up there. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=amazons-the-lord-of-the-rings-every-confirmed-actor&captions=true"] 90 years later and Middle-earth is one of the biggest entertainment properties around. Amazon reportedly dropped $250 million just for the rights to make a TV series set in Middle-earth and is expected to spend upwards of $1 billion to make multiple seasons. The series is expected to be back to filming after a COVID-19 shutdown. It's also been reported that multiple Lord of the Rings characters from the movies will be a part of the highly-anticipated show. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/24/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-teaser-trailer"] Aside from a Lord of the Rings TV show, there's a Gollum video game coming soon. Titled The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, it's described as a stealth game mixed with Prince of Persia. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who is more excited for Gollum: Prince of Persia than anything else right now.