After spending years away from Middle-earth, Warner Bros. is getting ready to dive deep into the works of J.R.R. Tolkien with more “Lord of the Rings” movies in the coming years. Yes, movies plural here. These films are not going to be a remake of Peter Jackson’s original trilogy, nor will they be a redo of “The Hobbit.” For starters, we’re getting a new “Lord of the Rings” movie titled “The Hunt for Gollum” that we first learned about earlier this year. Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in Jackson’s previous films, is going to be in the director’s chair for this one. In this case, one is actually a keyword as “The Hunt for Gollum” will indeed just be one film, as opposed to two.
Speaking with Empire, Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogy co-writer Philippa Boyens clarified that while there are two different “LOTR” movies in the works, the other one is a completely different project not connected to “The Hunt for Gollum.” Here’s what she had to say about it:
“I can tell you definitively it isn’t two films! That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we’ve begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being ‘The Hunt For Gollum,’ the second one still to be confirmed.”
Some confusion sprang up when Gandalf actor Ian McKellen suggested “The Hunt for Gollum” was going to be two films. Turns out, he was only half right, though it’s not entirely difficult to see where the confusion came from. Still, this all does open up a host of new questions regarding the future of the franchise.
