As soon as a new Lord of the Rings movie was announced in the form of The Hunt for Gollum, fans instantly began theorizing which cast members from Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings trilogy could return.
The Hunt for Gollum is set around the time of The Fellowship of the Ring, so there could be a place for characters who originally appeared in that movie. We already know that the film's director, Andy Serkis, will return as Gollum. Plus, Peter Jackson himself is on board as an executive producer. Over the last few months, numerous cast members have spoken out about the movie. Both Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) have showed interest in reprising their roles. John Rhys-Davies has said he'd reprise his role as Gimli...under the condition that makeup be replaced by digital enhancements.
Now, the latest original star to weigh in is Orlando Bloom, who has revealed that, yes, he's down to return to the role of Legolas the elf. However, there's one caveat. “I think first of all, I’d like to see [Legolas] the same age as he was [in the original trilogy],” Bloom explained in an interview with MovieWeb. “So, AI would have to come into play. I think I’d like to see him lithe and breezy and warrior-like so AI would have to come into play."
If Bloom was asked to return, there's no doubt about what his stance is: “And I think if they asked me, I would say, ‘Absolutely!’ It would be so fun just to go back to New Zealand and spend however long they want me there for. Because honestly, if you want to be anywhere in the world right now, New Zealand is the place.”
Digitally de-ageing Legolas is easily done if the team behind the movie wanted to include him. One example of excellent de-aging was Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian. Hamill was on set, but the VFX team managed to digitally de-age his appearance. Perhaps if The Hunt for Gollum utilizes a similar technology for Legolas, it could be onto a winner. And let's not forget that Orlando Bloom was already de-aged when he returned to the role of Legolas in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, which was made around a decade after The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That was before the big generative AI boom, so when Bloom talks about AI being needed, he may be using it more as a general stand-in for de-aging technology.
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is set to release in December 2027.
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