Like a flare thrown over the Misty Mountains, Ian McKellen dropped a small but potent update on the next Middle-earth film, “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” this week while speaking at the For the Love of Fantasy event in London.
Onstage, McKellen told the crowd he’d heard the new movie, directed by Andy Serkis and centered on the creature Gollum, would start filming in May, before adding: “I’ll tell you two secrets about the casting: There’s a character in the movie called Frodo, and there’s a character in the movie called Gandalf… Apart from that, my lips are sealed!”
While both were heavily rumored, especially Gandalf, that’s a pretty clean reveal on the character front. What McKellen did not do was explicitly confirm whether he was playing Gandalf again, or whether Elijah Wood was returning as Frodo—just that those characters existed in the film’s lineup. That said, you don’t jovially announce something like that if you’re not going to be appearing in it yourself.
The larger framework for “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum” has already been established: Serkis is returning to star and direct, and Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema have slated the movie for a theatrical release on December 17, 2027. The project also reunites the franchise’s core stewardship team behind the camera, with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens producing, and Walsh/Boyens co-writing the script alongside Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou.
One other rumor making the rounds—maybe sharpened by what McKellen didn’t say—was that Viggo Mortensen might not be returning as Aragorn, with at least one outlet, Knight Edge Media, claiming the role could be recast with a younger actor. That absence wasn’t confirmation of anything by itself, but it did stand out because Boyens previously told The Playlist the ‘LOTR’ braintrust had spoken with Mortensen and really wanted him back for Aragorn. However, until actual casting announcements land, rumors will stay in the fog-of-war zone—worth watching, not worth declaring.
Watch the clip below for McKellen’s onstage announcement.
Gandalf (Sir Ian Mckellen) with a great announcement for the new Lord of the Rings movie😍❤️ pic.twitter.com/pXh7P8QuTb
— Gollumgram (@Gollumgram) January 5, 2026
