Middle-earth Expands: Jamie Dornan and Kate Winslet Join The Hunt for Gollum
The annual CinemaCon is currently underway, and major film studios are holding presentations to promote their upcoming slates. Among them, Warner Bros. announced the cast for the next live-action Lord of the Rings film, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, during their presentation.
The film The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will be released in North America on December 17, 2027. It will be directed by Andy Serkis, the director of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and the actor who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy; he will also return to portray Gollum. In addition to Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen will return to play their respective lead roles from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit Frodo and the wizard Gandalf, while Lee Pace will return as the supporting character Thranduil, the Elvenking, from The Hobbit trilogy. Jamie Dornan (the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise) will play Strider, also known as Aragorn (originally played by Viggo Mortensen) from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Leo Woodall (One Day series), and Academy Award winner Kate Winslet (The Reader) will also star.
The film takes place between the events of The Hobbit trilogy and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, following Strider and Gandalf as they team up to find Gollum in an attempt to gather more information about the One Ring, and they must capture him before he reveals the Ring's location to Sauron.
In addition to The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, the studio is also preparing another live-action Lord of the Rings film, The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, with a script written by talk show host Stephen Colbert, his son Peter McGee, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy screenwriter Philippa Boyens. Deadline reported last month that the film will adapt chapters three through eight of the original novel The Fellowship of the Ring, specifically focusing on the story of Chapter 8, "Fog on the Barrow-downs." Tom Bombadil, who did not appear in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit trilogies, will appear in this film. The story is set 14 years after the passing of Frodo. Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began. It is believed that the film will use the journey of Sam and the others, along with Elanor's discovery, to fill in the story of Chapter 8 of The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson was released between 2001 and 2003, and all three films are regarded as some of the greatest in cinema history. The first installment, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and the second, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, won five and two technical Oscars, respectively. The third installment, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, won all eleven Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, tying the record for the most Oscar wins. Later, Peter Jackson directed The Hobbit trilogy between 2012 and 2014; while reviews were not as strong as its predecessor, each of the three films earned approximately $1 billion at the box office. In 2024, Warner Bros. released the animated film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which struggled both critically and commercially. Additionally, Amazon purchased the television rights to The Lord of the Rings several years ago and released The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in 2022, which received decent reviews and completed filming its third season last year.
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Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
Source: Deadline