Anya Taylor-Joy has joined the cast for The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. She’ll play an Elf. Update: Director (and star) Andy Serkis must be busily working away on his Lord Of The Rings film, The Hunt For Gollum, given that its release date is now just 18 months away. From what ... The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum | Anya Taylor-Joy gets Elf gig
Anya Taylor-Joy has joined the cast for The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. She’ll play an Elf.
Update: Director (and star) Andy Serkis must be busily working away on his Lord Of The Rings film, The Hunt For Gollum, given that its release date is now just 18 months away. From what we can gather, shooting began in May, with the fantasy opus due out on the 17th December 2027.
With cameras rolling, here comes a bit of casting news: Anya Taylor-Joy has joined the cast. According to Variety, she’s set to play Seren, a Sindar Elf, who’s said to be “a trusted and lethal agent of King Thranduil.”
Lee pace is said to be reprising the role of Thranduil for Serkis’s saga, with the star-studded cast also comprising Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Kate Winslet, Jamie Dornan and Leo Woodall. Serkis will, of course, be slipping back into his performance capture suit to play the the titular Gollum.
Fun fact: Otto Preminger previously voiced Thranduil in the 1977 animated adaptation of The Hobbit.
Our original story follows…
24th April 2026: In these modern times where Google sets the rules over what people get to read on the internet and what they don’t, we can at least be grateful for film titles like The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. Search engine optimisation suggests that posts such as these should be a minimum of 300 words long, so epic titles like The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum help us hit that mark with relative ease.
Anyway! Let’s address the headline. Cinemacon (rhymes with bacon) is still rolling on in Las Vegas, with studios large and small showing off their forthcoming movies to potential exhibitors. One of the biggest films on Warner Bros’ docket is its Middle-earth fantasy, The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum, which takes place before the events of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.
Warner Bros has used the event to formally announce the cast, which includes a few expected names and a couple of newcomers. Per Variety, we have Ian McKellen as Gandalf again, Elijah Wood as Frodo and Lee Pace as Thranduil. Andy Serkis, who’s also directing the whole thing, will again put on his performance-capture tights as Gollum.
Then we come to the new names; Kate Winslet will play Marigol, Jamie Dornan will be Strider, while Leo Woodall is Halvard.
Adapted by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum is based on the appendices tucked away in Tolkien’s original Lord Of The Rings novel, and concerns an effort to track down Gollum before he can reach Sauron and blurt out anything too revealing about the One Ring.
There was a rumour – started by Sir Ian McKellen himself, the scamp – that The Hunt For Gollum would be stretched across two films. Regular Rings writer Philipa Boyens promptly came forward and insisted that it would be a solo outing.
This isn’t the first adaptation of those appendices; in 2009, British filmmaker Chris Bouchard made his own The Hunt For Gollum on a budget of just £3,000. Given the resources it had, the mini fantasy was pretty good, and was something of a streaming hit.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum is likely to have a slightly higher budget than that; possibly £10,000 or even more. It’s set to begin filming this May, with its release set for the 17th December 2027. The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum.
