“The Hunt for Gollum”, new adaptation of “Lord of the Rings”, will bring back a memory to fans

CINEMA – Middle-earth is renewed on the big screen… well, almost. While the second season of Rings of Power is still awaited, first information on a new film adapted from the writings of JRR Tolkien was announced this Thursday, May 9. With significant details for fans of the first hour of the Lord of the Rings.

This new film, titled in English The Hunt for Gollum (which can be translated as The Hunt for Gollum by us), should be screened in cinemas in 2026. A more or less expected announcement, which should reassure fans of this universe since Variety assures that the father of cinematographic adaptations of the work, director Peter Jackson, will be there.

“ Involved at every step of the process », Peter Jackson and his faithful partners in the saga (Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) will not, however, be directing this new film. This was entrusted to the iconic interpreter of Gollum in the cinema, the British actor and director Andy Serkis, as specified in a press release from Warner Bros.

As for the story, it should focus on intrigues that have not yet been told in cinema, according to producer and CEO of the American studio David Zaslav. But connoisseurs of Middle-earth know that the title refers to the quest led by Aragorn and Gandalf after the events of Hobbit but before those of Lord of the Rings. A hunt led by the character played in the cinema by Viggo Mortensen to find the dark creature who knows too much about the One Ring made by Sauron.

A striking fan film

Does this story mean anything to you? If this is the case, nothing could be more normal since a film on this subject already exists. Or more precisely a “ fan film “. Unveiled in 2009, this project, developed outside the official framework of Peter Jackson’s saga for cinema, met with significant success when it was released. Helped by its free distribution on the internet, The Hunt for Gollum had even found a place at the London International Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Festival, better known as SCI-FI-LONDON.

By discovering the title of this new film (planned since February 2023 by Warner Bros. in a broader project of “ several films » about Tolkien’s universe), early fans couldn’t help but think back to this rather faithful adaptation, which has been available for over 15 years.

“We so quickly forgot the fan film The Hunt for Gollumreleased in 2009 »

” Fortunately The Hunt for Gollum is not already the title of a 38-minute fan film released in 2009, or of an expansion of the card game The Lord of the Rings ! »

Some took a dim view of this desire to once again adapt this story, present in the Appendices and Annexes to The Lord of the Ringsseeing it only as an unscrupulous recycling on the part of the studio to perpetuate this very lucrative franchise in the cinema.

“Fans already made a fan film with the exact same title back in 2009, in case you were wondering if Warner Bros. was out of ideas », regrets for example this Internet user.

Lasting around forty minutes, The Hunt for Gollum has a visual ambition close to Peter Jackson’s first trilogy, despite a more than ridiculous budget in comparison. But it was still authorized by the rights holders of the British novelist, on the condition of not generating profits on the project, as its director Chris Bouchard explained to the BBC in 2009. The film is still available in its entirety on YouTube.

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