The Hunt For Gollum Team On Character Crossovers and Competing With Amazon’s Rings of Power

The Lord of the Rings universe is expanding with The Hunt for Gollum bringing back franchise veterans Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis. This time around, Jackson will be producing the new movie, and Serkis will be taking over as director to bring a lost story to the screen within the existing world of Middle Earth as seen in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. However, with Amazon’s The Rings of Power set to release its second season this year, is there room for more from the fantasy franchise that rules them all?

The Rings of Power

Release Date

September 2, 2022

Seasons

1

Studio

Amazon Studios, Harper Collins Publishers, New Line Cinema

Franchise

Lord of the Rings

Phillippa Boyens, who worked on the scripts for Jackson’s previous Rings movies, is once again writing the screenplay for The Hunt for Gollum. As someone with a great insight into the power of Tolkien’s work, she doesn’t believe there is limited room for how many Lord of the Rings projects can be in development at any one time. She told Deadline:

“There’s room enough for lots of people to exist within that space. We’ve never wanted to be the gatekeepers of Middle Earth. Sometimes other people put you in that position, but we don’t feel that. Honestly, I haven’t seen any of it. I didn’t want to go watch too much, because I genuinely didn’t want to be influenced. But I think it’s a fantastic era, as a choice. The making of the rings of power is a brilliant piece of storytelling. It’s a great era, full of fascinating characters.”

Andy Serkis Shares His View on The Hunt for Gollum’s Character Appearances

The Lord of the Rings comes with an extensive list of main and supporting characters, and there is a high expectation that at least some of those characters will make an appearance in The Hunt for Gollum. The setting of the story, which sees Aragorn, Gandalf, and more attempting to track down the Hobbit with a dual-personality, is begging to see the inclusion of several fan-favorite characters. However, for now, Serkis isn’t going to share who that could be. He said in the same joint interview:

“That’s a difficult question to answer right at this moment in time, because we’re really in the nascent stages of what it is exactly where we’re doing, and where the story’s going to take us. So I don’t want to commit anything right now. I mean, because it’s so raw and so raw and wriggling, and we are just literally having very early state script discussions and ideas of exactly where and how we’re going to drop anchor with the character and his journey and how he is or comes into contact with other characters, and the characters that we know and don’t know.”

Possibly the biggest challenge facing any returning characters from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is who will play the roles. It has been over 20 years since stars such as Viggo Mortensen appeared in the franchise, and a decade since Ian McKellan, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, and others appeared in The Hobbit, so is it likely that there will be several recastings required? Or could it be possible that the likes of Mortensen would be able to return through digital de-aging? This is a question we are still some way off finding out an answer to.

Related

The Lord of the Rings Is Mirroring Star Wars (And That’s a Good Thing)

The future of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings on screen is brighter than ever, with new stories like The War of the Rohirrim in development.

One thing that is for certain, with The Hunt for Gollum aiming for a 2026 release, The Rings of Power bringing Season 2 to Prime Video later this year, and the animated movie The War of the Rohirrim also scheduled for theatrical release in December, there is a lot to come from Middle Earth for those who want it.