Reports suggest AI will be used to digitally de-age several actors for Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis’ Lord Of The Rings film, The Hunt For Gollum.
Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy remains one of the great filmmaking feats of the 21st century. As we briefly talked about here, its old-fashioned mode of sincere storytelling has aged well in an era when films can’t help but reference sequels or insert clever gags that remind you you’re watching a film.
The next Lord Of The Rings to hit cinemas is set to be the animated prequel The War Of The Rohirrim. That one releases this Christmas, but looking beyond that, there’s The Hunt For Gollum, a live-action film directed by Andy Serkis. It will be set just before Frodo Baggins leaves the Shire for Rivendell – events that take place in 2001’s The Fellowship Of The Ring.
According to recent reporting, Ian McKellen has been asked to reprise his role as Gandalf. The powerful wizard won’t be the only character returning either, given that Orlando Bloom – who was at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend – chatted to the press and revealed that he too has been asked to return. World Of Reel has gone as far as to claim that ‘the main cast of Peter Jackson’s trilogy have all been asked to come back, including Wood, Bloom, Mortensen, McKellen and Bean’, although we haven’t seen that stated anywhere else.
It looks like Bloom will be joining McKellen however, and perhaps the rest of the fellowship could be along for the ride too. The actor is now 47 and first played Legolas, the elven archer, when he was 23. Speaking about how that age discrepancy could work in a film which would take place within the events of the existing film, he revealed that digital de-ageing will be used.
“Oh, man, those things are amazing,” he said, per Dark Horizons. “Yeah. I don’t know how they’d do it. I guess with AI you can do anything these days. But, if Pete [Peter Jackson] says jump, I say, ‘how high?’ I mean, he started my whole career.
“I really don’t know what [they are planning]. I did speak to Andy [Serkis] and he did say they were thinking about how to do things. I was like, ‘How would that even work?’ And he was like, ‘Well, AI!’ and I was like, ‘Oh, OK!’ It was a pretty magical time in my life, and it’s one of those things where there’s not a downside to it.”
While the idea of the core cast reuniting might hold an appeal to fans, it’s not exactly free of a ‘downside’. Digital de-ageing tech is getting better and cheaper all the time, but applying the process heavily to a film series that (despite heavy use of CGI) has always relied on the sincerity and humanity of its actors to anchor all of the wilder fantasy and visual effects, makes it something of a risk.
The Hunt For Gollum is apparently the first in a set of two films. It’s due out in 2026 but things will need to get moving quickly if they plan to get it shot and then add all of that technical wizardry before that date. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
