The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum Is Officially Underway
Here’s everything we know so far about this precious prequel.
On the issue of the One Ring, the entity known as Gollum famously said “we wants it, we needs it” — but it’s hard to feel the same about the incoming midquel starring Gollum himself. It’s been years since director Peter Jackson helmed the Hobbit prequels for New Line Cinema, and longer still since he delivered a near-perfect adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. This fantasy franchise, beloved as it is, doesn’t necessarily need a new installment. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Jackson, screenwriter Philippa Boyens, or Andy Serkis — who brought Gollum to life in both trilogies — from reuniting to deliver one.
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will, at best, be a fun walk down memory lane for both the creative team and the audiences who grew up on the Lord of the Rings films. Not unlike Prime Video’s prequel series, The Rings of Power, it’s taking a sliver of context found in Tolkien’s appendices and weaving it into a feature-length story. And with production officially underway, our return to Middle-earth is coming sooner than we think. Here’s everything we know about The Hunt for Gollum so far.
What is the Hunt for Gollum release date?
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is set to premiere in theaters on December 17, 2027, which doesn’t give its creative team a lot of time to mount such an ambitious production. Serkis is pulling double duty as both director and star — in Warner Bros.’ official production announcement, he’s seen calling “action” in the motion-capture suit that will also transform him into Gollum once again. Serkis will have roughly a year and a half to wrap principal photography and lock in the finished product, but given all the ways technology has advanced since Serkis last played Gollum, the production process might be a little easier this go ‘round.
Who is directing The Hunt for Gollum?
While Peter Jackson directed all three Lord of the Rings films and the Hobbit prequel trilogy, he’s passed the torch on to Gollum himself, Andy Serkis. Seeing as this film will retell elements of The Lord of the Rings from Gollum’s perspective, Jackson thought there’d be no one better to depict his unique perspective.
“I honestly, truly believe that if it’s a film about Gollum’s addiction and internal struggles, Andy would make a much more interesting film than me,” Jackson told IndieWire at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. “You’re taking written things by Tolkien and filming them from a certain POV, and that means you have to get inside his head.”
What is The Hunt for Gollum about?
Gandalf and his pals are in a race against time to find Gollum.
A specific synopsis for The Hunt for Gollum hasn’t been released yet, but Serkis has revealed a thing or two about its scope. “The hunt takes place in two different dimensions really,” he recently told BBC. “It is very much a deep dive into the psychology and history of Gollum before he became Gollum, but also with a very burning question from Gandalf about what the potential origin of this ring that Bilbo Baggins has is.”
Jackson recently compared the film to the Joker of this Middle-earth saga. Jackson and his partner, screenwriter Fran Walsh, took a major page from the DC spinoff, particularly “the way that explored the Joker’s psychology while it was telling a story.” Otherwise, Jackson told IndieWire that the film is pulling from Tolkien’s lesser-explored work: the appendices and glossaries that accompanied the novels.
“The Lord of the Rings has got these big appendices at the end... and part of The Hunt for Gollum is described in that,” the filmmaker said. “Gollum’s childhood and how he became what he was. He is trying to get to the Shire, and the Rangers are tracking him down. He ends up being captured and taken to Mordor — it’s all in the appendices.”
All told, The Hunt for Gollum will retread Gollum’s origins as a Stoor Hobbit of the Shire, his finding of the One Ring of Power, and his descent into madness. It’ll also fill in some context from The Fellowship of the Ring, specifically the quest to find Gollum before he reveals the Ring’s location to Sauron’s forces in Mordor. Spoiler alert: we already know that Gandalf, Aragorn, and the Rangers fail to catch him before Sauron does — but The Hunt for Gollum will hopefully find a way to make this conflict worth the revisit.
Who is in the cast of The Hunt for Gollum?
The Hunt for Gollum will bring back characters from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies.
The Hunt for Gollum is uniting a handful of beloved characters from both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films. Here are the actors returning for the midquel:
- Andy Serkis as Gollum
- Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey
- Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins
- Lee Pace as Thranduil, King of the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood
Seeing as it’s been over a decade (at least!) since this cast was reunited, The Hunt for Gollum is turning to a divisive filmmaking method to turn back the hands of time. Serkis told Variety that, while there will be no “AI shots” in the movie, “there’s a little bit of de-aging for some of the characters, and machine learning is part of the process.”
Jamie Dornan has been cast as Strider, aka Aragorn.
That said, they can’t bring every LOTR alum back with the help of de-aging. The film is also bringing in some new faces to fill out the cast, with one in particular taking over for a fan favorite:
- Jamie Dornan as Strider (aka Aragorn), taking over the role from Viggo Mortensen.
- Kate Winslet as Marigol, presumably Gollum’s grandmother.
- Leo Woodall as Halvard, a Dúnedain man and reportedly a Ranger of the North.
- Anya Taylor-Joy as Seren, a Sindar Elf and agent of King Thranduil.
Will there be a sequel to The Hunt for Gollum?
While there were once rumors (supplied by star Ian McKellen himself) that The Hunt for Gollum would be split into two films, there haven’t been any official updates confirming that possibility. For now, let’s hope that this midquel will stand on its own. This film seems to have scraped every unaddressed thread relating to Gollum out of Tolkien’s legendarium just to get a story on its feet, so it’s difficult to imagine there being enough material for a sequel. That said, the Hobbit trilogy did break one 300-page book into three whopping films — so anything is possible for this saga.
