Strange new Lord of the Rings movies

[JagLover]

So we had updates on two new projects recently and they just seem very odd.

First of all The Hunt for Gollum
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32328070/

Which seems to have very limited dramatic potential

Then, even more bizarre, something set 14 years after closing scene of ROTK, with flashbacks to something the movies left out. Written by a talk show host with almost no previous writing experience

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/lord-of-the-rin...

Now it is quite correct that a few chapters were missed out of FOTR for pacing, but using them as a basis for an entire movie seems rather odd.

Now I know that Hollywood doesn't have the rights to the first age (perhaps fortunately so at this moment in time) and are also busy destroying the second age with Rings of Power. Surely though there could be some more promising ideas than this if you absolutely had to make more content?

[JoshSm]

They just get worse as they go.

The first three were all great.

The next 3 Hobbit films were padded to death, really don't like them.

Then there's everything else...

[SlimJim16v]

Just saw there's a 38m fan film of Hunt for Gollum.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1323925/?ref_=nv_sr_srs...

[bloomen]

JoshSm said:

The first three were all great.

I think the only one I actually enjoyed was the Two Towers. The final one, with its 30-40 false endings, nearly finished me off in the cinema.

Knowing how spinoffs and stretch outs turn out, I wouldn't sit through anything else relating to this.

[DodgyGeezer]

The good:
- apparently Colbert has an encyclopedic knowledge of LotR,
- he is a massive fan
- he has written scripts previously

The bad/questionable:
- will he be able to separate his politics from the source material (ie will the temptation to overfill with 21st century sensibilities overwhelm)? Cf. RoP

[JagLover]

DodgyGeezer said:

The good:
- apparently Colbert has an encyclopedic knowledge of LotR,
- he is a massive fan
- he has written scripts previously

The bad/questionable:
- will he be able to separate his politics from the source material (ie will the temptation to overfill with 21st century sensibilities overwhelm)? Cf. RoP

For someone with such a knowledge he sure seems to have picked an odd subject for his film. Going only from a brief synopsis of course.

He has written scripts before, for some TV episodes a long time ago.

I am leaving the politics aspect entirely to one side, I just don't see how what is conveyed by the synopsis is a movie, let alone a successful one.

Peter Jackson looked as if he were in a hostage video when he introduced him.

[Stick Legs]

[Pitre]

Star Wars #2.

[R4EVS]

JagLover said:

So we had updates on two new projects recently and they just seem very odd.

First of all The Hunt for Gollum

Basically an Andy Serkis vanity project. He's milking that character for all it's worth.

JagLover said:

Then, even more bizarre, something set 14 years after closing scene of ROTK, with flashbacks to something the movies left out. Written by a talk show host with almost no previous writing experience

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/lord-of-the-rin...

Colbert is at a loose end and I reckon petitioned/lobbied for this and someone at Warner quickly signed it off "to help a friend" before the Skydance merger happens (because it would never have been approved under the new regime). Colbert will make some coin from this regardless of whether it goes ahead or not, which was probably the intention.