Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum has received a huge update.
The Hunt for Gollum is scheduled to be released in United States theaters in 2027 from Warner Bros. Pictures. Directed by Andy Serkis, the new Lord of the Rings movie will see Ian McKellen reprise his role as Gandalf. Having played Gollum in all three of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, as well as the first Hobbit film, Serkis is also reprising his role.
What is the update on The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum?
Per Deadline, it has now been confirmed that Kate Winslet has been cast in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Character details remain under wraps at this point, though she is expected to be the “female lead.” Knight Edge Media first reported that Winslet was in talks for a role.
“Serkis and Peter Jackson spent most of last year coaxing Winslet to appear in the film, which means uprooting her family to New Zealand to shoot her scenes in the film from late May through to October,” the article notes. “It’s a country she’s familiar with, having shot Jackson’s 1994 movie Heavenly Creatures there.”
This marks a full circle moment for Winslet as, according to Far Out Magazine, she was originally offered the role of Éowyn in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies, though she turned it down. The part instead went to Miranda Otto.
Deadline’s article says of the movie’s plot, “The new film follows Aragorn’s perilous quest to capture Gollum before the creature can reveal the Ring’s location to Sauron. The story, much of it developed from Tolkien’s footnotes, is set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.”
The article also mentions that Elijah Wood is reprising his role as Frodo Baggins in The Hunt for Gollum, though this does not seem to have been confirmed at the time. Wood has strongly hinted that he’ll appear; however, Wood said in an article published by The Times UK earlier this week that “there is a good chance” he’s in the movie, but he’s “not able to officially say anything until it’s announced.”
Winslet won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in 2008’s The Reader. She’s also been nominated for her performances in 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, 1997’s Titanic, 2001’s Iris, 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2006’s Little Children, and 2015’s Steve Jobs; additionally, she’s won Emmy Awards for Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown. Winslet recently reprised her role as Ronal in Avatar: Fire and Ash and made her feature film directorial debut in Netflix’s Goodbye June.
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum arrives on December 17, 2027. Production is expected to begin in May.
