New LotR film, with Jackson, Boyens and Walsh involved, "The Hunt for Gollum" slated for 2026

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1

The title contains the bare bones of what I have seen about this. Note that there was a 38-minute fan-made film in 2009, with different cast, writers, and everything, of which I have seen a couple of minutes before I stopped watching. But I would guess this new film covers roughly the same ground, to wit: Gandalf’s and Aragorn’s efforts to find Gollum before (? I think) he got captured by Sauron and spilled those two critical words that started LotR rolling.

I saw this info a couple of days ago in a YouTube video from the channel Nerd of the Rings. At this stage, the movie is “in development” according to IMDB.

I have truly mixed feelings (rather like Candy at the end of her book) about this. On the one hand, these are the people behind the LotR movies. On the other hand, these are the people behind the Hobbit movies. I am trying hard to keep an open mind and see what develops. Since there is very little (that I’m aware of) actually written about these events, I guess they are entitled to make up events and characters, as long as they fit within the legendarium. They are going to have to invent a lot, it seems to me, to fill up a whole big-time movie.

2

It makes me very sad that the industry, specifically its moron executive leadership, has become so unimaginative and risk-averse that creative filmmakers like these are not allowed to make anything new and are railroaded into continuing to recycle whatever made money twenty or more years ago. Peter Jackson et al. are hardly alone in this, either, but he’s an especially prominent example. There’s a reason he abandoned fiction filmmaking in favor of noodling around with his pet documentary projects.

I cannot see how this newly announced film will be anything but a waste of everyone’s time, up to and including all but the most undiscerning audiences. This is a project that exists solely because the studio had a slot in their “Intellectual Property That Hasn’t Yet Been Dry-Humped Into Oblivion” spreadsheet that needed to be filled, and for no other reason. None of the filmmakers involved is really hungry to make this, and nobody is wildly excited to see it. Yet here we are.

3

I thought there were some difficulties:

  • Del Tor was the original director, then he dropped out
  • the Hobbit was originally two films, but the studio insisted on three
4

I thought Peter Jackson decided to push it to three films.

Behind the scenes, they were also struggling with getting battles filmed and finished on time.

The Hobbit movies, which I really like, were definitely rushed compared to Lord of the Rings. Let’s hope whoever directs this new movie gets proper pre and post production time.

5

Researched and thorough video on the subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTRUQ-RKfUs

6

If “the topic” is the Hobbit movies, not this new one.

7

Apparently there is quite a bit more written in other things written by Tolkien and edited and published by Christopher. The video that I referred to tracks an entire timeline and series of search routes (and side trips) by Aragorn and Gandalf, mostly separately, in search of Gollum.

I think it will be a challenge to take that and make it interesting, since a) we know the outcome, and b) the actual events are mostly just searching and not finding.

8

Maybe they’ll spice it up with a love triangle between Gandalf, Aragorn, and some Hobbit lass.

9

Amen. I want this as a tattoo, maybe.

10

I am reasonably certain, but nowhere near 100%, that all of the additional writing about the search isn’t much more than a couple of pages of possible timeline notes. In any case, Warner Brothers does not have the rights to anything other that was was stated in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the appendices. Which again, just comes down to a bare bones timeline of a handful of dates.

Even if there was a trove of Tolkien work, either edited and compiled by Christopher or not, the studio absolutely wouldn’t be able to use it legally as things stand now.

11

That’s a phrase I never thought I would see in print…

12

Your whole post is 100% accurate. Probably more. Hollywood has practically run out of ideas, so instead of a treasured trio of films, we end up with a “universe” of unimaginative superhero movies, regurgitated and re-chewed thriller/romcom plots, and Star Wars prequels of rabbit-hole-diving at every minor and otherwise forgettable character. I wish they’d just stop this nonsense and take a chance on some new ideas for a change, sheesh!

If this whole Gollum thing is delivered, will I see it? Maybe, but somehow it’s starting off with the taint of desperation.

13

To be strictly accurate, there are plenty of Hollywood people with great ideas. They just aren’t allowed to make them because the bean-counters at the top are a pack of worthless jackals who can’t distinguish between a good story and a gum wrapper.

14

I agree there are plenty of good ideas out there. But I think the problem isn’t inability to tell good from bad. That’s true of anyone. Sometimes good ideas get made into bad movies; sometimes good ideas become good movies but no one seems them, for reasons no one can figure out.

The problem is risk aversion. Take a risk on something that might be huge or might flop, or make something with a built-in fan base and name recognition? That’s where the bean counters are killing creativity.

15

Does this mean they wouldn’t be allowed to follow those notes at all, and would be required to make up stuff for this movie?

16

I briefly worked professionally in entertainment and have followed the movie business closely for decades. I agree that the issue is risk aversion.

However, it’s important to note that the majority of executives have always been morons who don’t understand the art form they supervise. Check out Sid Sheinberg’s memo to Steven Spielberg during the development of Back to the Future in 1984, for example.

They are good at business and accounting shenanigans. Very few of them have been good at the creative side, ever, going back literally decades. When I say they can’t tell a functional story from a French dip sandwich, I’m dead serious. They just aren’t wired that way.

What’s different between previous eras and now is that the tension between the business side and the creative side used to be better balanced. The businessmen thought the creatives were lunatics, but if they gave the creatives some leash, they would come back with just enough financially successful movies to keep the industry afloat. (And then there are the aforementioned accounting shenanigans to pad the margin further.)

Now, by contrast, the studios are all obsessed with taking the billion-dollar swing (contrast Katzenberg’s memo about singles and doubles), which means every project has to be risk-limited up the wazoo. Everything has to be a franchise, recognizable, pre-sold, tied in. If something fails, the execs want to be able to show via the metrics that they made all the “right” decisions at their end, so whatever went wrong wasn’t their fault.

It didn’t used to be this way; it was understood and accepted that you make a wide variety of bets, knowing that the ones that worked would pay for the ones that didn’t. You could afford to let the creatives have a little slack on the line. But not any more.

So, yes, risk aversion, absolutely correct. But it’s now on steroids, and the gatekeepers are quite literally the worst possible people to be making decisions about which projects are worthy and which aren’t. I am not exaggerating when I say people like David Zaslav are unqualified to recognize a good story. He simply does not function on that level.

17

To be even more accurate, the people in Hollywood with good, original ideas don’t work in movies these days - they work in TV.

18

Correct. They have to use the IP they own or fresh creative. They cannot reference the Silmarillion or any of the volumes of compiled unfinished work. IMO that’s also why that Amazon series sucks so bad. It’s just poor quality fan fiction.