The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will face this major problem

A 70-year-old replica of Aragorn is likely to give Andy Serkis a hard time for his film Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. The director faces a real challenge in adapting his vile creature's Middle-earth road trip.

The Hunt For Gollum,the mysterious journey of Gollum

After having put on the costume of Gollum, Andy Serkis will also move to the other side of the camera to direct The Hunt for Gollum in 2026, the next film dedicated to the universe ofLord of the Rings after the animated feature film War of the Rohirrim, which was directed by Kenji Kamiyama, and will be released in our cinemas on December 11, 2024.

While the story surrounding the film produced by Peter Jackson remains unclear, its title remains quite evocative. Peter Jackson revealed shortly before the summer that the film will focus at length on Sméagol/Gollum's dual personality and his still-nebulous journey. “We really want to explore his story and delve into the unknown parts of his journey. Something we haven't had time to do in the previous films. It's too early to know who he's going to cross paths with, but suffice it to say that we'll be taking a page from Professor Tolkien.”

a breakneck adaptation

If the precise synopsis is not revealed, this “Hunt for Gollum” must cover a nebulous period of approximately 18 years, from Aragorn's charge by Gandalf to watch over the former Hobbit, to his capture in the Marsh of the Dead in 3017 and his captivity at Thranduil's, the king of the Wood Elves. In the meantime, we know that Gollum is captured and then released in Mordor, and that Aragron travels various places in Middle-earth to find his prey.

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But the information remains very thin,Tolkien did not elaborate on the character's road trip in his writings. The material available to the writers is a series of dates reported in the appendices as well as conversations between Gandalf and Aragorn. The latter then tells the magician that he has found the trace of the creature called Gollum, but rather than evoking a hunt of all dangers, he finally reveals a tedious and desperate journey. “I too ended up despairing, and I began my return journey (…) I never got anything from his mouth other than the mark of his teeth (…) the worst part of my journey was in my opinion the way back, watching him day and night, making him walk in front of me, a rope around his neck, a gag over his mouth”, he wrote to his ally.

These are, in short, the only concrete elements that Warner can rely on to put its story into images. And this could pose a problem, when we take a look at what Prime Video is doing with The Rings of Power.The platform based its story on Tolkien's notes and appendices. And it is clear that even season 2 has failed to meet fans' expectations. Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay have not been able to demonstrate enough inventiveness to continue the work of the British novelist while honoring him.

A heavy task that will fall to Warner Bros. But with Andy Serkis behind the camera as a passionate, combined with the vision and experience of Peter Jackson in production, we hope that the result will be there. The possible returns of Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, or even Viggo Mortensen as the Ranger of the North, would be a great help to the credibility of such a project that is rather risky at the moment.