The next live-action Lord of the Rings movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, is coming to theaters on Dec. 17, 2027, Warner Bros. announced Thursday. The film was previously slated for a 2026 release.
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will be directed by Andy Serkis, known for voicing and performance capturing Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. Since Jackson’s dual film trilogies, Serkis has directed a few big-budget project himself, including Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Jackson will co-produce the new Gollum-hunting flick with writing-producing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who also worked on the LOTR and Hobbit movies.
Last year, Boyens described The Hunt for Gollum as a stand-alone movie — it won’t be split across multiple films — and “quite an intense story, which falls after the birthday party of Bilbo and before the Mines Of Moria” in the original Fellowship of the Ring.
It’s unclear who besides Serkis will star in The Hunt for Gollum, considering much of the principle Lord of the Rings cast will have aged some 26 years since The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out. Also, primary characters from Fellowship — with the possible exception of Aragorn — would understandably be busy doing other things during the time period when The Hunt for Gollum is set. I’m sure Jackson, Serkis, and screenwriters Walsh, Boyens Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou will figure something out.
Warner Bros. Discovery announced in 2023 that multiple new Lord of the Rings movies were in development. In addition to the already released animated feature The War of the Rohirrim and The Hunt for Gollum, at least one other unannounced project is in the works. Both of those live-action projects could involve the return of Ian McKellen’s Gandalf, according to Boyens.
Whatever the case, there’s a strong possibility that Serkis’ return to the Gollum mocap suit and the director’s chair will go better than 2023’s The Lord of the Rings: Gollum video game.
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