[Film] Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum

[Isgrimnur]

Warner Bros. to Release New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to Produce and Andy Serkis to Direct

Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.

The project is currently in the early stages of script development from writers Walsh and Boyens, along with Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, and will “explore storylines yet to be told,” Zaslav said.
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Warner Bros. first announced in February 2023 that then-newly installed studio leaders Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy had brokered a deal to make “multiple” films based on the beloved J.R.R. Tolkien books. The projects will be developed through WB label New Line Cinema. Freemode, a division of Embracer Group, made the adaptive rights deal for books including “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” under a venture named Middle-earth Enterprises.

A separate, animated Middle-earth movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” is due on Dec. 13 via Warner Bros. and director Kenji Kamiyama. That movie is set 200 years before the events of “The Hobbit.”

[Blackhawk]

Please let them look to the LotR film trilogy, and not The Hobbit.

[Jaymann]

Please let them look to the LotR film trilogy...

It will be a direct sequel, where they will use force fields to jump into the lava of Mount Doom to hunt for his remains. A four movie series.

[ImLawBoy]

Please let them look to the LotR film trilogy...

It will be a direct sequel, where they will use force fields to jump into the lava of Mount Doom to hunt for his remains. A four movie series.

Will there be one inexplicably hunky dwarf who romances an elf maiden?

[Pyperkub]

I didn't watch the Hobbit movies, and I won't watch this. Do not need more Peter Jackson Middle Earth. He needs to move on and do something different, and other visions need to tackle ME.

[Jaymann]

Please let them look to the LotR film trilogy...

It will be a direct sequel, where they will use force fields to jump into the lava of Mount Doom to hunt for his remains. A four movie series.

Will there be one inexplicably hunky dwarf who romances an elf maiden?

Scuttlebutt is that The Rock is having his lower legs amputated to secure the role.

[hepcat]

Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Red Gollum, by Tom "Bombadil" Clancy. A gripping tale of espionage set in Middle Earth.

[hitbyambulance]

The Hunt for Gollum

wtf is this title even

[Daehawk]

Please let them look to the LotR film trilogy...

It will be a direct sequel, where they will use force fields to jump into the lava of Mount Doom to hunt for his remains. A four movie series.

Will there be one inexplicably hunky dwarf who romances an elf maiden?

It will be a bearded female Dwarf and a Hobbit and they will adopt an orc baby they find in the woods. The sequel will be the orc parents looking for their now grown child that they sat down in the woods while they went to pee behind trees all those years ago.

[Holman]

The Hunt for Gollum

wtf is this title even

There is canonical backstory in Tolkien (set between The Hobbit and LOTR) about Aragorn tracking Gollum due to Gandalf's suspicions about the One Ring. IIRC, Aragorn goes almost to Mordor itself and back in order to capture Gollum and bring him to Thranduil's realm in Mirkwood as a prisoner. It's basically a whole campaign in itself involving Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, Galadriel, Thranduil, and Legolas. I think maybe even the fan-favorite but so-far-unseen Glorfindel might be there too.

It's clearly an elf-heavy story, and strictly speaking there should be no hobbits involved. I suppose Gandalf could visit Bilbo and pick his brain about the creature he met underground.

Andy Serkis is not only reprising his role as Gollum but actually directing this one. I assume it will stick close to Peter Jackson's (Executive Producer now) vision of Middle-earth. My guess is that we'll see all the familiar faces and that there will be a lot of de-aging CGI going on.

[Daehawk]

And probably take 4 hours.

[hepcat]

Fine by me. If a movie is good, I relish getting a lot of it.

[Sudy]

What a horrible idea.

I'm in it for the Burger King promotional combo.

[Blackhawk]

I think maybe even the fan-favorite but so-far-unseen Glorfindel might be there too.

He was already in the films. He was played by Liv Tyler.

It's clearly an elf-heavy story, and strictly speaking there should be no hobbits involved. I suppose Gandalf could visit Bilbo and pick his brain about the creature he met underground.

This was also the period during which Frodo's parents were killed and he was adopted by Bilbo.

It was also the period when Aaragorn and Arwen became a thing. It is the period when some of the dwarves from The Hobbit decided to go to Moria ("Drums... drums in the deep..." The Enemy's agents began wandering around, Aaragorn's rangers were assigned to guard the Shire, and all sorts of other background things went on. They can absolutely pull some stories out of that period.

There's even more wiggle room than is obvious. In the Lord of the Rings films, everything opened with Bilbo's birthday party and him going away. Then next we see Gandalf show back up, confirm the true nature of the ring, and relate it to Frodo. Next we see Frodo set out on a journey.

In the books, between the party and the conversation about the ring, 17 years passed, and then another five or six months before Frodo left the Shire (in the books it wasn't an urgent thing, so he made a show of it - he was packing up Bag End and moving to... Buckland, maybe? The moving was a cover for him going away.) Anyway, Merry and Pippin were helping him move, but they'd figured out what was up and insisted on coming along. They were still troublesome, but not the tricksters from the films.)

There was almost a 20-year gap in there that the movies glossed over, during which Frodo was tooling around the shire (wearing the ring from time to time to hide from nosy relatives.)

The LotR story proper doesn't start until after all of that, so they could - theoretically (not practically, with the actors having aged) cover a nearly 80-year span of history.