Precious Little Excitement: Warner Brothers, Peter Jackson, and Gollum
Back in February 2023, I made the cardinal mistake of getting my hopes up. Warner Brothers declared that fresh Middle-earth movies were in the works:
My assumption, based on which rights were available, and what had already been done, was that this was a stab at either the Angmar vs Arthedain wars, or else the Gondorian Kin-strife. It sounded an eminently sensible idea, and potentially interesting – in much the same way as the fandom is looking forward to the upcoming animated version of Helm Hammerhand. My only query was the involvement of Peter Jackson, because I think his interpretation of Middle-earth has been done to death. It really is time that we closed the door on the Jackson era of Tolkien adaptation.
Alas. Mining Tolkien’s actual work for fresh cinematic ideas is clearly old-hat. No, as per an announcement today, we are getting The Hunt for Gollum, as produced by Peter Jackson:
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-movie-2026-release-warner-bros-1235997102/amp/
This hurts on multiple levels. Firstly, it just reinforces the notion that modern media corporates will run anything into the ground in the name of profit – they’re retreading the same generic War of the Ring territory as the earlier movies, just from a different direction. Secondly, what real story can Gollum offer that is not already covered by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? His ventures through Mirkwood and Mordor? His baby-eating tendencies? Gollum’s life is utterly tied-up with the One Ring – without it, he’s just an unpleasant proto-hobbit living beside a river. And if you’re doing the One Ring… you’ve already done that. And Amazon are doing the One Ring’s creation (and presumably its eventual loss) over on Rings of Power, so that isn’t an option either.
But the real tragedy? This steps on the toes of one of Tolkien fandom’s little treasures. The Hunt for Gollum is a 2009 fan-film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunt_for_Gollum, one extremely well-regarded (Born of Hope, another such fan-film about Aragorn’s backstory, is a bit weaker). The 2009 film is comparatively low-stakes, of course, being a supplement to the original Jackson trilogy, but a low-budget fan-film is ideally suited to that sort of story. Now in 2026, we shall have a big-budget Jackson movie of the same name, that will utterly dwarf the earlier piece, and probably have to artificially inflate the story-stakes, after the manner of Jackson’s Hobbit. To think Warner Brothers had the ability and finances to pull off Angmar, but opted for this… it’s so utterly depressing.
Addendum:
Warner Brothers are utter bastards. No sooner do they make this announcement, than the 2009 Hunt for Gollum finds itself struck from YouTube on account of a Copyright hit: https://twitter.com/ClaysCourt/status/1788756397137576134
Fifteen years, and millions of views. Corporate Bastards.
Addendum II:
The Copyright strike appears to have been lifted, and the 2009 film is back on YouTube: https://twitter.com/ChrizBouchard/status/1788954963919470812
Thank goodness.
A Phuulish Fellow 
One of the weirdest choices I’ve seen. The Hunt for Gollum strikes me as the ideal project for a fan-made movie (low stakes, simple plot, very contained) but feels baffling as a major motion picture. It seems to amount to just two hours of Aragorn and Gandalf roaming around looking for Smeagol to confirm if Frodo has the One or not? In all honesty ‘Young Aragorn’ as the Amazon show was rumoured to be about would make more sense, uninspired as it sounds, as at least you’d have his time fighting with Rohan, serving under Ecthelion, his travels East. This is bottom of the barrel scraping.
I have pretty much no real investment in either this or the War of the Rohirrim. I’m rather tired of Jackson’s encompassing influence over Middle-Earth. It’s at the point now where it almost feels like PJ ‘owns’ Middle-Earth more than its original author does in the public mind.
And the fan film is off the net? So not only do WB & Jackson like helping to bash trade unions, they’re happy to bully harmless fan projects? Definitely a sour taste in my mouth today.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The title might be a codename to camouflage The Hunt for the Ring, the section in Unfinished Tales which sets the Aragorn and Gollum story within the bigger story of Sauron’s machinations; involving the Nazgul, Saruman, Wormtongue and more. Plenty of incident, a little dialogue, something to work with anyway. If it could be licensed! I’d back PJ & co to craft an engaging action-adventure flick out of that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another thing that just occurred to me is that if WB wanted to diversify the casting of the LOTR, the Lossoth would have been a keen opportunity to cast actors from a marginalised community. They could even make the Chief who warns Arvendui a major character, expanding on him beyond the text.
But hey, Gollum beckons apparently. I’ve seen people pulling old quotes suggesting “exploring Gollum between leaving the misty mountains and meeting Frodo” has been of interest to Jackson since shooting the original New Line films (apparently he had a notion to film some hunting for Gollum scenes at one point). Goodness knows why.
Really I’m very sick of corporate nonsense, and quite sick of PJ too.
LikeLiked by 1 person