The Rings of Power debuts new character, Ian McKellen mulls The Lord of the Rings return

The Lord of the Rings has been consistently popular since J.R.R. Tolkien's books came out in the 1950s, but rarely has it been more active than it is right now. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies are back in theaters, they're making a new movie all about Gollum, a second season of The Rings of Power is coming to Amazon Prime Video this summer, and there's even a Lord of the Rings musical on the way. You're returning to Middle-earth whether you want to or not.

Let's start with The Rings of Power, which is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, long before characters like Bilbo or Frodo or Aragorn were born. In this show, a (mostly) new cast of characters battles against Sauron, then an aspiring Dark Lord. Amazon recently released a new cache of images that includes some old favorites from season 1 as well as some newcomers. In the case of the dark elf Adar, it's a little of both:

Adar was a villain in season 1, where he was played by Game of Thrones veteran Joseph Mawle. In season 2 the role will be played by Sam Hazeldine. Despite the actor change, Adar's goal will remain the same: maintaining a homeland for the orcs. At the end of the first season, he basically created the land of Mordor.

In another photo, we see the elf Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) helping out the Númenórean Isildur (Maxim Baldry).

These two are down but not out, and based on these photos it looks like they'll be spending a lot of time together. There's also a new character in the mix: a human woman named Estrid, played by Nia Towle.

While Arondir is an original character created for The Rings of Power, Isildur is an important figure in Tolkien's mythology. Estrid may bridge the gap. There's no one by that name in Tolkien's work, but we do know that Isildur eventually gets married and has children. Based on how cozy the two get in the shot below, perhaps Estrid becomes Isildur's wife:

Or she's Sauron in disguise. That tends to happen on this show. I also wonder if Estrid could fill some of the hole left by the character Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who will not be returning in season 2. We'll find out the details when The Rings of Power returns on August 29.

Ian McKellen would return in new Lord of the Rings movie, "if I'm alive"

Moving onto the movies, the next film on the docket is The Hunt for Gollum, starring and directed by Andy Serkis, who played the ring-warped creature Gollum in director Peter Jackson's trilogy. So far as we can tell, the movie would involve the ranger Aragorn (Isildur's descendent, FYI) and the wizard Gandalf searching for Gollum, which happens "off-screen" during The Fellowship of the Ring.

Does this mean that actors Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen would return to play Aragorn and Gandalf respectively? Well, McKellen is 85 years old at this point, but he joked to The Times that he would consider it "if I'm alive."

He also cautioned that there is "no script, there is no offer, there is no plan" at the moment, so we probably shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. If you want to see McKellen's Gandalf on the big screen, the extended editions of Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies are back in theaters for a limited time. For the next two weekends, The Fellowship of the Ring is playing on Saturdays (June 15 and 22), The Two Towers is playing on Sundays (June 16 and 23), and The Return of the King is playing on Mondays (June 17 and 24). Check your local listings to see if they're playing near you!

According to Collider, box office returns have been brisk considering that this is a limited release and the movies are decades old. The Fellowship of the Ring brought in $2.44 million domestically this past Saturday, pushing the movie's total box office haul over $270 million. The Two Towers was estimated to bring in $1.91 million on Sunday and The Return of the Ring to bring in $1.86 million on Monday. There's life in Middle-earth yet!

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h/t IGN