I’ve been talking a little with Anjohan about this, but most of the ideas I’ve had so far are about possibly shortening the Stranger/Harfoot storyline, and I’m not sure I want to actually do that, since they’re kind of the hopeful counterbalance to a lot of the other darker plot threads. I do think that I need for Poppy to somehow leave with Nori and the Stranger since she immediately rejoins them in the desert.

More of my thinking has been about what to focus on in a second film. My idea has always been to do the forging of the three, but I also think that I’m going to add in Numenor and the Stranger/Harfoots in Rhun.

Then for a third film, we’d have the crisis with the Dwarves, Annatar, and the fall of Eregion, but all that would likely need to wait for season 3 so that we’d have something lighter to juxtapose from the continuing Harfoot adventures, unless there ends up being a clear way to split their story from season 2 in half.

The result would be an opening trilogy that covers the forging of all but the One ring.