The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum is a single film

Lord of the Rings
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Ian McKellenā€™s claim that The Hunt For Gollum will be two films was a ā€˜genuine misunderstandingā€™ according to writer-producer Philippa Boyens.


If the brilliant scene set at the Doors of Durin during 2001ā€™s The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring taught us nothing else, it was a reminder that even wizards can misundestand things occasionally. Weā€™re pretty sure thatā€™s a rarity, but it looks like it may have happened again as Ian McKellenā€™s claim last month that the planned Lord Of The Rings: Hunt For Gollum project was actually two films seems to have come down to a misunderstanding.

It seems that we might have arrived at the best of outcomes here, not least because there were quite a few worried double takes when McKellen revealed back in September on This Morning that, “I’m told it’s two films,” adding, “I probably shouldn’t be saying this.”

After giving the ITV show a big Hollywood scoop, the internet lit up with the news. After all, The Hobbit films suffered from spreading out too little plot over too many films, resulting in a trilogy which largely failed to recapture the incredible success of the original Lord Of The Rings movies. To paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, the films felt ā€˜thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.ā€™

While McKellenā€™s announcement had us worried that the new Gollum project might be heading in the same direction, it seems to have simply been a misunderstanding between actor and producers. There are two Middle-earth films coming and it looks like they will be connected, but only one of them is The Hunt For Gollum.

In an interview with Empire, co-writer and series producer Philippa Boyens confirmed The Hunt for Gollum will only be one movie, saying: ā€˜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. We’re playing around with a number of ideas, but most of those ideas do include Gandalf. So Gandalf would potentially return for two live-action films.ā€™

Boyens added, ā€˜It’s quite an intense story… it’s a specific chunk of incredible untold story, told through the perspective of this incredible creature.ā€™

The film is slated for a 2026 release, which means weā€™d expect to start hearing more soon given that pre-production must surely be ramping up.

Weā€™ve also got the animated feature, The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim coming on the 13th of December. A quick making-of featurette for that film popped up over the weekend which you can see below.

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