Uh oh: Ian McKellen says new Lord of the Rings spinoff movie is "two films"

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was a sensation when it came out in the early 2000s. Years later, Warner Bros. tried to make lightning strike twice by hiring Jackson to adapt The Hobbit, another of Tolkien's beloved books set in Middle-earth. Those movies made lots of money, but they didn't go over as well with fans, in large part because the story stretched over three films. That worked for The Lord of the Rings, which was a book trilogy to begin with, but The Hobbit is a much shorter standalone work, and didn't fit comfortably on that bigger canvas.

Over a decade after that, Warner Bros. Discovery is returning to the well with The Hunt for Gollum, a new movie starring and directed by Andy Serkis, who played the One Ring-obsessed wretch in both of Jackson's trilogies. The Hunt for Gollum is about a side story that happens offscreen during an early stretch of The Fellowship of the Ring, when the wizard Gandalf and the ranger Aragorn track down Gollum to find out what he knows about the return of the dark lord Sauron, who is hunting for his One Ring.

This story is even thinner than The Hobbit, since there's no source material to speak of. It could still be good, but Serkis and co would have to approach it gingerly. Which is why I'm getting a little nervous when I hear Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in both of the earlier trilogies and would like to do so again, say that the intention is to make The Hunt for Gollum into two movies.

"I don't like the idea of anybody else playing Gandalf," McKellen said during a visit to the talk show This Morning. "I'm told it's two films. I probably shouldn't be saying that."

Orlando Bloom in talks to return as Legolas in The Hunt for Gollum

McKellen qualifies that he hasn't seen a script (he expects to have one in the new year) nor has he committed to returning to The Lord of the Rings universe just yet, but I can believe he'd be kept in the know about these things. And that makes me nervous because I didn't like how The Hobbit movies stretched out the story unnecessarily and I'd hate for the studio to repeat that mistake. But it's early days on The Hunt for Gollum and there's still plenty of time to pivot. So we watch and wait.

Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in the original trilogy, is also open to returning for The Hunt for Gollum, although again, nothing is set in stone yet. And while we're talking about Lord of the Rings veterans returning to Middle-earth, Orlando Bloom — who played the elf Legolas — is also thinking about a comeback. “Oh, man, those things are amazing," he told Variety. "Yeah. I don’t know how they’d do it. I guess with AI you can do anything these days. But, if Pete [Peter Jackson] says jump, I say, ‘how high?’ I mean, he started my whole career.”

"I really don’t know what [they are planning]. I did speak to Andy [Serkis] and he did say they were thinking about how to do things. I was like, ‘How would that even work?’ And he was like, ‘Well, AI!’ and I was like, ‘Oh, OK!’ It was a pretty magical time in my life, and it’s one of those things where there’s not a downside to it."

I guess he means they'd use AI to de-age the 47-year-old Bloom to make him look more like he did back during the days of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. But again, it's early days.

The Hunt for Gollum, whatever it ends up being, is due out in theaters sometime in 2026.

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