[sphinx]

There’s lots of material to use

I take your point, but it's risky. There are fragments of Middle Earth history of the period referenced in the published canon -- Gollum's wanderings; Aragorn tracking Gollum; the White Council driving Sauron from Dol Guldur; Aragorn's romance with Arwen; the dwarves' war with the orcs -- but nothing developed as a story by Tolkein.

Pretty risky territory. Strikes me as similar to that Gone With The Wind sequel a few years back.

[SauronOfMordor]

There's also the material of The Silmarillion, detailing events of the early days, including the first War of the Ring which was covered briefly at the beginning of the Fellowship movie