There's also the millennia prior to The Hobbit that such a series could explore — loads of stuff from The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, etc. It still doesn't strike me as a GOOD idea, but it's not as obviously a money-grubbing bad idea as the initial headline made it sound.
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"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that this was some killer weed."
"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that this was some killer weed."