The band is getting back together for a new “Lord of the Rings” movie set slightly before the main events of “Fellowship of the Rings” with “The Hunt for Gollum,” and franchise star Elijah Wood, who plays the beloved Frodo Baggins, is teasing that the creative/producing/studio team are considering more movies beyond the next one that is going to be helmed by Gollum actor Andy Serkis (If you weren’t aware, Serkis was second unit director on Peter Jackson‘s “The Hobbit” movies”).
Wood spoke at the Fan Expo New Orleans panel moderated by ScreenRant, coyly commenting on the recent statements from co-star Ian McKellan about their reunion for “Gollum” before teasing that audiences could end up seeing more features set in Middle-earth if the stars align.
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“I can neither confirm nor deny. Listen, a wizard is to be trusted,” Wood said recently at Fan Expo New Orleans. “Aside from any of that, I’m not really allowed to confirm. I’m really excited about the film. I think it really is a creative ‘getting the band back together.’ A lot of the creative heads of department are back and in that space again. Philippa [Boyens] I think, is co-writing it and producing it. It’s very much that core original group getting back together to tell this story that will feel like a really fun exploration of this character that we all love so much. And I’m just really excited.
“I’m excited for Andy [Serkis] to direct it,” Wood added. “It feels so unbelievably appropriate that he directs a film about his character that he has really made his own. I’m thrilled. It’ll be great. And I’m excited to see… I know their intention is to make other films in this universe. And that’s exciting, interesting to see where that goes, but very exciting.”
This isn’t entirely shocking since “The Hunt for Gollum” won’t even be the first movie from the “Lord of the Rings” creative team since “The Hobbit” trilogy. That would be the anime pic “The War of the Rohirrim” from director Kenji Kamiyama, which was released back in December 2024. While that animated movie from producer/co-writer Philippa Boyens didn’t exactly make a splash with critics or at the box office, it’s hard to deny that there is still a hunger for more live-action tales with Prime Video‘s super-expensive Second Age series “The Rings of Power” going into its third season (originally meant to go for five seasons, we’ll see if that happens).
What “other movies in this universe” means is a little unclear, given that the Third Age seems to be the timeline wheelhouse for the New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. side of things. Some of the more compelling character-driven and epic battles come out of J.R.R. Tolkien’s written work from The First Age (“The Silmarillion” was fleshed out with various stories like “The Children of Húrin,” “Beren & Lúthien,” and “The Fall of Gondolin” getting extended published versions that could easily make for cinematic adaptations), but it remains to be seen if anyone will get access to that material from the Tolkien Estate.
Would they attempt to go into uncharted waters with an adventure set in The Fourth Age with King Aragorn? That seems unlikely given there isn’t much Tolkien work to go off from for that era in the Middle-earth timeline, but we’re in the dark about what else they could do after “The Hunt for Gollum.”
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