Phillipa Boyens Gives An Update On 'The Hunt For Gollum'

TV & Film

Dec 22

After bringing fans back to Middle-Earth in the anime feature War of the Rohirrim, Philippa Boyens can turn her attention to the next live-action film, Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. In previous statements, Boyens explained the film’s premise, “Gollum’s story is one of the most compelling to us in terms of a character that we couldn’t go as deeply into as we wanted to before, which sounds strange when you say that, given how familiar he is to everybody. Gollum’s life span takes place in such an interesting period of Middle-earth.”

Boyens described the current planning period as having the story spread out all over her kitchen table. However, she confirmed the presence of Aragorn. She said, “We know Aragorn/Strider captures Gollum in the Dead Marshes. How does he pick up his scent? How does he find his trail, how does it happen? Do you know? I don’t know at the moment.” The Hunt for Gollum is set to take place before Fellowship of the Ring as Gandalf seeks the creature out to learn about Bilbo’s ring.

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Phillipa Boyena and Andy series — Image Source: ShowNews

In an interview with SlashFilm, Boyens compared the upcoming movie with Two Towers, “Two Towers was one of the harder films to write because it is doing that, bridging the beginning. It is the middle film. It has a quality of that to it. But one thing that we are determined to do — and a lot of this is going to have to do with Andy Serkis as a director — is we want this to be different and to feel fresh. To exist within the world that has been established, but also to be surprising. And I think what's interesting is we are finding a lot of threads of story that are surprising in there when you really go in there and examine it.” Boyens teased that the film will take fans to new places in Middle-earth. Although the story is still being written, the film is currently set to release on January 1, 2026. Sir Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen have both expressed interest in reprising their roles of Gandalf and Aragorn.

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