It's official: we're going back to Middle-earth. Today Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed the release date for its next Lord of the Rings film, The Hunt for Gollum: December 17, 2027. We'll be spending Christmas with Sméagol!
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are working together again on The Hunt for Gollum and a second, as yet unnamed Lord of the Rings movie. They're part of the team that made the legendary trilogy of movies in the early 2000s, so obviously their involvement in The Hunt for Gollum bodes well.
Andy Serkis will of course return to the role of Gollum, which he played in both The Lord of the Rings movies as well as the first movie in The Hobbit trilogy. He's also the director for The Hunt for Gollum, which I imagine means we're going to be getting quite deep into Sméagol's psyche in this new movie.
What is The Hunt for Gollum about?
Details for The Hunt for Gollum are still fairly sparse right now, but from what we've heard in the past this movie will take place before the main Lord of the Rings trilogy. Remember how Gandalf tells Frodo that he and Aragorn searched high and low for Gollum, and couldn't find him before the forces of Mordor captured him and tortured the location of the One Ring out of him? That's the story The Hunt for Gollum will tell. We don't know whether Ian McKellan or Viggo Mortensen are coming back for this movie, or how the film would handle the fact that those actors are so much older now than they were in the original trilogy, but we'll be watching closely for updates.
I'll admit, I've been a little wary of getting too excited about The Hunt for Gollum; it seems a little like a cash-grab to keep the Lord of the Rings machine rolling for parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, even if some LOTR cast members like Elijah Wood insist otherwise. But would I also watch Andy Serkis crush it as Gollum for a full movie? Yes, yes I would.
And to be fair, the team behind this movie is very much aware that fans may have this reaction, and they're ready to win them over. "I know there’s plenty of people out there who will be like, oh no, why are they doing this? Why are they going back in?" she told Deadline last year. "Well, that’s our job, to prove why we think that it’s a good idea.”
I'm ready to be convinced, and with the release date a few years off, there's plenty of time. The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum hits theaters on December 17, 2027.
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