‘Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’: We Have a New Aragorn, and Everything Else We Know
Harry Potter is not the only beloved fantasy series with film adaptations that hit theaters starting in 2001 to return to our screens. More than two decades after the immensely popular Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy smashed the box office and swept some Oscars (not to mention embedded itself into millennial psyches), Warner Brothers is heading back to Middle Earth.
Way back in February 2023, Warner Brothers announced that there would be multiple new films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s material coming from the studio. At CinemaCon in Las Vegas last week, the world got its first look at what that’ll actually look like.
Here’s everything we know about the new Lord of the Rings series so far. Bump that Enya and let’s go.
What’s the new movie called, what’s it about, and how exactly does it fit in the Tolkien extended universe?
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum takes place during the time period between Bilbo Baggins’s birthday party at the start of the The Fellowship of the Ring and the founding of the fellowship. Though this is shown as a relatively short amount of time in the 2001 Fellowship of the Ring adaptation, it actually spans around 17 years.
The plot of The Hunt for Gollum involves Aragon trying to track down Gollum to make sure he doesn’t reveal the location of the One Ring (the Shire) to Sauron and his dark forces. Back in 2024, Peter Jackson told Screenrant that the story would be told from Gollum’s perspective.
Here’s a fun fact: there’s an unauthorized fan-made short film on this same subject called The Hunt for Gollum that was released in 2009. It cost around $4,500 to make at the time (no doubt around the same budget Warner Brothers is working with).
Who’s directing it?
That would be Andy Serkis, who played the titular Gollum in the original trilogy and has since become the Marlon Brando of motion capture suits. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens are all returning as producers as well.
Who from the OG cast is returning?
Andy Serkis, naturally, will be coming back as Gollum/Sméagol.
