During a recent interview with Empire, The Lord of the Rings co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens confirmed Andy Serkis‘s upcoming spinoff movie starring his own breakout motion-capture character, The Hunt for Gollum, will be just one movie—not two as was previously reported.
“I can tell you definitively it isn’t two films,” she says. “That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we’ve begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being The Hunt For Gollum, the second one still to be confirmed.”
Boyens additionally revealed the timeframe of the Gollum spinoff in relation to The Fellowship of the Ring. “It’s quite an intense story, which falls after the birthday party of Bilbo and before the Mines of Moria. It’s a specific chunk of incredible untold story, told through the perspective of this incredible creature.”
If you recall, the rumor Serkis’ Gollum picture would be spread across two feature-length films originated in an interview with Sir Ian McKellan; his confusion apparently stemmed from a miscommunication with Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films which has “multiple” ideas for additional projects starring Gandalf, according to Boyens. “We’re playing around with a number of ideas, but most of those ideas do include Gandalf,” she told Empire. “So Gandalf would potentially return for two live-action films. We have an absolute banger of a second film that would just be incredible as an anime. But let’s see if there’s an appetite for it.”
In case you’ve forgotten, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim—an anime fantasy film directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)—is set for a theatrical release this December 13. Starring Brian Cox as the legendary Helm Hammerhand, the story concerns the former King of Rohan and his family as they defend their kingdom against an army of Dunlendings. Depending on how well that film does, we could additionally get a follow-up anime starring the 85-year old McKellan as Gandalf in a voiceover role.
But that honestly begs the question of whether the American moviegoing public will be interested in seeing a traditional 2D animated film—or Serkis’s film, for that matter, a whole 20 years following the release of The Return of the King and 10 years after a Hobbit trilogy mostly remembered for its tie-in Denny’s menu. To quote Gandalf himself: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
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