Summary

• Warner Bros plans to expand the LOTR universe with new movies, starting with the War of the Rohirrim animated prequel.
• The Upcoming Hunt for Gollum aims to bridge The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Aragorn and Gandalf on a quest to find him.
• WB's focus is on staying true to the atmosphere of the original trilogy, with familiar characters likely being present.

Peter Jackson’s trilogy of Lord of the Rings films from the early 2000s are the quintessential fantasy movies of the 21st century. They are a near-perfect adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary books, though they aren’t afraid to divert from the original story in ways to make it more compelling in a cinematic format. Since their incredible success both critically and at the box office – The Return of the King was the second film in history to gross over $1 billion, and it went on to win 11 Oscars, including Best Picture – there has been a consistent desire for new Lord of the Rings stories both from fans and the studios behind the scenes.

Jackson returned to Middle Earth with three films based on The Hobbit in the early 2010s, which were massive box office hits despite their generally lackluster reception. Then, Amazon entered the fray with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, a prequel series on Prime Video set thousands of years before the core story audiences are familiar with. However, this is just the beginning. Warner Bros has recently committed to bringing the franchise back to the big screen in a major way, with the hopes of expanding it into a cinematic universe similar to what Disney has done with Star Wars.

While the first new Lord of the Rings film to be released will be The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, a prequel animated feature about Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, a couple of hundred years before The Hobbit, WB has been actively developing other new, live-action stories. With the announcement of two new live-action films produced by Peter Jackson, the studio is demonstrating its commitment to the franchise.

The first of these films will be The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, directed by Andy Serkis, who will also return to star as the titular stinker. The film will also be written by Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh, who were co-writers on Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, as well as Phoebe Gittens and Arty Papageorgious, who co-wrote the upcoming War of the Rohirrim. While WB and Serkis have not revealed any details about the plot, there is a specific story explored in Tolkien’s novels that this film's title clearly references, and this movie is more than likely going to adapt. Here’s what you need to know.

When The Hunt for Gollum Will Be Set

Since Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy first hit theaters, every new movie or show that has been released has been a prequel. The Hobbit movies were set about 60 years before The Lord of the Rings, adapting the first book that Tolkien wrote in the series, which was about Bilbo Baggins’ adventure with Gandalf and the Dwarves of Erebor, with him encountering Gollum and obtaining the Ring of Power along the way.

After that, The Rings of Power went back even further to tackle the primary story of the Second Age of Middle-Earth, as it depicts Sauron’s rise to power, the kingdom of Númenor at the height of its strength and how the forces of Men and Elves came together to fight the Dark Lord thousands of years prior to The Lord of the Rings. Next, The War of the Rohirrim will jump back a couple of hundred years to tell a mostly standalone story set in the kingdom of Rohan.

The Hunt for Gollum will take this same approach. The film's story seems to be taken from conversations between Gandalf and Frodo early in The Fellowship of the Ring, and a deeper explanation can be found in the appendixes at the end of the Return of the King novel. This story is set pretty immediately before The Lord of the Rings. Or, in actuality, it overlaps with that main story a bit, but only to a minor degree.

The Hunt for Gollum will depict how Gandalf’s research about the One Ring led him to seek Gollum out, as the wizard sought to confirm the dangers he suspected. This means that The Hunt for Gollum will be set after Bilbo’s 111th Birthday Party, which was seen at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. However, it will be before Gandalf returns to Frodo years later when he explains the Ring's danger to the hobbit and sends him and Samwise Gamgee on their initial journey to the village of Bree outside the Shire.

Aragorn and Gandalf Will Search for Gollum

So, what will the actual story be? Well, during Gandalf’s research into the One Ring, he comes to understand the understated importance that Gollum has played in the story so far. The wizard had been keeping track of Gollum’s movements after he exited his cave in the Misty Mountains to pursue Bilbo Baggins following their encounter and Bilbo’s taking of the Ring. However, after so long, Gandalf stopped tracking Gollum and focused his attention elsewhere. He comes to regret this decision after Bilbo’s birthday party when he first begins to suspect that the hobbit's magic ring might actually be the One Ring.

The story of The Hunt for Gollum will likely begin after Gandalf leaves Frodo in the aftermath of Bilbo's party, saying that he has questions that need answering and instructing the hobbit to “Keep it secret, keep it safe.” In Tolkien's writing, Gandalf then travels to Minas Tirith to conduct more research on the Ring, meanwhile he partners with Aragorn and instructs the ranger and future king to track down Gollum in order to question him about his experience with the Ring. This is likely to be the crux of this new movie. It will be Gandalf and Aragorn searching the wild for Gollum, desperately trying to find him before Sauron does.

This may seem like a fairly bare-bones structure for a story, but Tolkien actually provided a fairly in-depth explanation of these events in his writing. The author detailed Gollum’s wandering to Mordor, his first experience with the spider Shelob, as well as plenty of Aragorn’s solo search in the wild. The story covers a lot of ground, ranging from the dead marshes to Gondor and the Misty Mountains to the home of Legolas and Thranduil in Mirkwood. It’s a fairly extensive adventure through Middle Earth.

It also takes place over a relatively extended period of time. In the books, Gandalf does not return to Frodo and the Shire until almost 20 years after Bilbo's party. While this time jump is overlooked and unaddressed in the films, it is not outright negated, meaning that Jackson, Serkis, and the rest of the creative team still have plenty of room to work on this story.

How the Gollum Story Has Been Told Before

Since WB first announced its intent to develop more Lord of the Rings films, many fans have speculated that this particular story would be a possibility. One key reason for that is that it is so centered on key characters from The Lord of the Rings, chiefly Aragorn, Gandalf, and Gollum, with many others, such as Legolas, Thranduil, Elrond, and Arwen, on the fringes and able to be easily factored into the plot. It's a solid bet from WB, as this is a familiar kind of story that features recognizable characters and has detailed writing from Tolkien to build on.

However, this story of The Hunt for Gollum has been told before on a couple of occasions. Most recently, elements of this plot were adapted directly into the video game The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, released on most video game consoles last year. While the reception to that game wasn’t very kind, much of that was the result of the gameplay itself, not the story being told. Additionally, a fairly well-crafted fan film produced in 2009 also told this exact story; it was also titled The Hunt for Gollum. It is now available on YouTube, where it has amassed over 13 million views over the last 15 years.

As far as what fans can expect from The Hunt for Gollum, the film will likely try and adhere as closely to the atmosphere of the original Lord of the Rings films from Jackson as possible. With Jackson producing, Boyens and Walsh co-writing, and Serkis in the director’s chair in addition to starring as Gollum, WB is clearly trying to get as much of the original creative team together as possible.

There has been no indication if Viggo Mortensen or Ian McKellen will return to the roles of Aragorn and Gandalf. However, McKellen has already shown an openness to returning through his work in the Hobbit trilogy a decade ago. Mortensen has generally been less eager to return, though he seems to have come around on that in recent years, so it is far from an impossibility that he would be willing to return to the role of Aragorn. The Lord of the Rings film franchise is streaming on Max.