The Hunt For Gollum Is Arriving Later Than We Thought
Production time is precious.
Warner Bros. sure likes to take its sweet time. Even when its movies aren’t abruptly canceled, they often endure long, frustrating delays. The Batman was delayed, Dune: Part Two was delayed, Mickey 17 was delayed, and The Batman: Part II has twice been delayed an entire year. The latest victim is a strange addition to a classic franchise, but at least it’s still on track.
Andy Serkis is once again bringing Gollum to life in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and he’ll be directing the prequel as well. When the movie was announced in May 2024, it had the broad release window of sometime in 2026. However, Serkis has now said that deadline isn’t feasible. “Yeah, it is not 2026,” he told The Direct. “It was originally going to be December 2026. It is going to be December 2027."
If anyone can make a Gollum prequel work, it’s Andy Serkis.
That’s a long wait, but at least it narrows the release window down to a mere month. Despite being almost three years away, The Hunt For Gollum already has competition, as a currently-untitled Star Wars movie is scheduled for December 17, 2027. As long as nothing moves again, a nerdy double feature feels inevitable.
Serkis also provided some precious details on how the story is shaping up. “We are right at the beginning of the writing process,” he said. “We will be prepping later this year. Prep takes a good chunk of time, six or seven months, and then we will be shooting next year. So, it backs into that December 2027 release date.”
A Gollum-based prequel struck many fans as an odd premise, so while we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see it, this delay at least implies that Serkis is taking his time to do the story justice. We don’t want the little guy to be stranded out there, after all.
