Nobody's going to want a Gollum movie, just like nobody wanted a Gollum game.

3 part trilogy: Golum begins. The Dark Hobbit. Golum rises

Tolkien wrote exhaustive backstories for almost every part of the LOTR story. And even he didn’t think the hunt for gollum was worth elaborating on.

Money doesn't launder itself 🤷🏻‍♂️

Hollywood is completely out of ideas

All I can hear in my head is Mel Brooks: "Spaceballs 2: The search for more money!"

There's a Gollum fan film, that was made 15 years ago and was until today, available on youtube to watch for free. Guess what? WB hit this fan made, non commercial movie, with a copyright strike today and youtube took it down. UPDATE: After people protesting they took back the copyright claim, the fanmade movie is back.

Pippin: What about Hunt for Gollum? Aragorn: You already had it. One existed in 2009. Pippin: We had one, yes. What about another Hunt for Gollum? Aragorn: 🤨 🍎

Feels like Wormtongue is just somewhere on the board of directors “yes my CEO they loved the gollum game, let’s make another”

It seems to me the story of Aragorn would have been way better. Dude was like 90 years old by LotR. Gollum's story was literally already told... kills his bud, eats babies, exiled to the cave, Bilbo finds the ring, Gollum searches for it, gets captured by Mordor, tortured, gives up the name Baggins. Let go, then later he tracks down the fellowship... then has a nice lunch with Frodo and Sam, then does a backflip into a volcano.

So they're going to make a film about a single page in the Fellowship of the Ring. They should have made a film about in the book when Gimli promised Legolas that after the ring is destroyed he would take him on a grand tour of the Mines of Moria and explain the entire hidden history of the Dwarfs.

The backstory for Smeagol at the beginning of Return of the King was all the Gollum we needed. and to everyone saying "oh but its Peter Jackson and the screenwriters of LOTR, so it might be good" well they were also the ones who made the Hobbit films and see how bad those turned out.

The problem with any modern adaptation of Tolkiens works, outside of making crap up, is that they will never respect the fact that these books are representative of Celtic, Gaelic, and Anglo Saxon culture, that they were written to represent the peoples of the British Isles, so they will ignore all of that, arropriate our culture, and make the cast "diverse". It it were an original work like Warcraft, Harry Potter, e.t.c then I would have zero issues with a diverse cast in a fantasy setting, but this is Tolkien and his work was written as a replacement for the myths, stories, and legends that were lost in this country due to various invasions, it was written to represent us. But of course, im sure saying that makes me racist to these people.

I have a bad feeling about this, Mr. Frodo.

This feels like an Andy Serkis vanity project

Gollum is a popular character because of his contrast with Bilbo, and then Frodo. Elevating him to lead character status is the storytelling equivalent of walking off a cliff.

As long as there are long slow motion shots of farming in there, I'm sold.

"My Precious... money." - WB

Drinker: There is apparently a new Lord of the Rings movie in the works. Me:🤦‍♂️

If Baldur’s Gate 3 and FNAF are any indication, the stories of today are happening in gaming.

The Hunt for Red Gollum: One Ring Only.

Gandalf: "I looked everywhere for the creature gollum, but the enemy found him first" - There, just saved Warner Brothers $150m and the audiance a $15 movie ticket. Seriously though, there is already The Hunt for Gollum fan movie that cost only $5,000 , I dont know why we need a big budget version of a very small side quest.

I.P. Mining (good phrase). "Take that thing people liked and recycle it".

JKR single-handedly managad to get a whole generation of children to start reading books -- I have a clear memory of an 8-9 year old girl walking about town with the massive Order of the Phoenix hardback hundreds of pagers long tucked under her arm ; and then they made the movies, and the immediate next generation abandoned the books, abandoned reading, and then abandoned JKR.

KZfaq had a pretty decent movie called 'The Hunt for Gollum' at about 40 minutes it was pretty solid. It has since been blocked due copyright grounds.

I will never get over the bastardization of The Wheel of Time.

I know EXACTLY why this is the story they chose to do! In the books Aragorn describes his hunt for Gollum as taking him "far to the south where the stars are strange" meaning the southern hemisphere, namely Harad. Harad was more or less Tolkien's equivalent to Africa. They are doing this story so they can show middle earth as diverse...

The hunt for Gollum: this time it’s personal

Oh yeah, because the Gollum game was *soooo* good lol

The Angmar War - Fall of Arnor, make that into a trilogy with the right people and money will come.

there was a short film with this idea. Warner claimed it today

“What can we do now?” Go to a bookshop or a library! There are so many books (and writers)!

"Because of MONEY! That's why, Drinker!" - I hear you say.

Lord of Ring: Hunt for Gollum (what could possibly go wrong)

I read the title, went "Why?" And then I clicked on the video and saw the "... Why?" which had me in a good chuckle

There is a very good little Indie movie called ''The Hunt for Gollum'' available to watch online right now. Looks like Warner Bros are just ripping it.

To quote from Mario: I have a question for God, Why!

Why? Because "Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.” - JRR Tolkien

The Little Platoon had it perfectly: Look what they did to The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time and The Witcher - don't let those same hacks at Elric or The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. There is no way that they could produce anything worthwhile with a protagonist as complex as either of those.

I suspect it's because so many people said, "The best thing about The Hobbit movies was Gollum." and took that as a cry out for more instead of an insult to those films.

"The Hunt for Gollum"? Not "The Hunt for Money"?

I can't wait to see "Titanic 2: Jack Sneaks On Board." It's gonna be epic!!!

And after this, I can't wait for the trilogy of Bill the Pony and his voyage back to Bree.

I agree with Robert… we need New Stories With the untapped stories around the world it’s almost immeasurable, but no one in Hollywood is game enough for fresh new/old stories that haven’t been seen on screen.

Why not just make a film of the Fall on Gondolin or Beren and Luthien.

It could be worse: they could have introduced the concept of multiverse in the Lord of the Rings lore.

The War in the North vs. the witch king would be a MUCH better story/source for a movie

In fact, the movie will actually be: "The Hunt for a Paying Audience".

A product born out of desperation

Lord of the Rings 4: The Quest for More Money. thank you Mel Brooks for preparing me for this day.

There's a nice parallel here - in the Silmarillion Morgoth could not make new life, only corrupt existing life forms into a mockery of what exists. Disney-Lucasfilm is basically Morgoth

Mistborn would make such a great film series.

Did they take down the fan film after the announcement? Another cash grab incoming.

I got a dollar that says they're gonna stretch this movie into three parts.

12:10 John Carter was a missed opportunity. The film was actually pretty good, but Disney dropped it so it could pursue Star Wars. Look how that went.

And lo! The world cried out as one: "WHY!?!"

We know Gollum's story. What's the mystery? Gollum is a great side character. He works well in this role in the Shadow of Mordor video game, too. Jack Sparrow is a great side character in Pirates of the Caribbean. It doesn't work when you take a character like that and make them the central focus. You just end up with Dead Men Tell No Tales.

I feel they should have called it quits after the Lotr trilogy.

The craziest thing is if wb wanted to make new films based on characters in lotr, literally ANY other character would be better. Elrond - no one's favorite character but in his thousands of years lifespan had experienced and traveled so much and fought in so many epic battles. Or Glorfindel, Theoden, Arwen, Saruman, literally anyone would be better movie.

How are they not making a young Aragorn movie. Literally fought alongside both Theoden and Denethor's fathers for years. Also travelled to Harad. So much potential there.

"SO! You have a movie about a Lord of the Ring side character for me?" "Yes sir I do!"

THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM " We need to find gollum " " Oh look he's following the fellowship, let's wait here " " Gollum has been captured " THE END

John Wick worked because the movies had a budget that meant it didn't have to make a billion dollars. It was a movie made for its niche with a budget that matched. The Lord of the Rings trilogy found mass appeal but the Hobbit didn't. This movie will most likely appeal to a smaller set of people but most likely will be budgeted like everyone wants it. And a good number of Tolkien fans don't even want it at this point.

[UK] Oh wow! Incarnations of Immortality and The Chronicles Thomas Covenant books - long time since I've heard those mentioned. In particular I remember reading the 'Chronicles' while on Army exercises (US: 'manoeuvres'). No need for a bookmark while living in a muddy hole in the ground - it was always easy to see where I was by the different (dirty) colour of the pages I'd handled.

While I agree that three films was overkill, I still disagree with the assessment that The Hobbit should have been adapted into a single film. One of the first things people seem to forget is that The Hobbit was written as a children's book, which means a lot more happens on far fewer pages, with Tolkien spending way less time describing the environments etc. than he does in The Lord of the Rings. Secondly, people forget the similarities between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in terms of plot beats. Both stories start with a party in the Shire, a hobbit being whisked on an adventure, getting into trouble prior to getting some reprieve in Rivendell, trying to cross over the Misty Mountains, being forced to navigate under the mountains instead, escaping orcs, winding up with the elves in a forest realm, making their way down a river, ... That's the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, both for the book AND the film. The Hobbit follows all those beats, but continues on from there. The Dwarves travel to Esgaroth, from there to Erebor, Bilbo encounters Smaug, Smaug dies, the Battle of the Five Armies ensues, and Bilbo makes his way home. Including what are basically all the plot beats of Fellowship and all of the above in one single film just wouldn't be feasible. Moreover, in certain respects, The Hobbit films HAD to delve deeper than the book. In the book, Gandalf wanders off every now and then, basically whenever having a wizard around would have been too convenient for the plot. While this works for a children's book, Tolkien later (retroactively) explained these disappearances in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, to tie both books together into an overall narrative. Including this in an adaptation of The Hobbit, intended to tie into The Lord of the Rings trilogy was unavoidable. So while I fully agree they should never have turned The Hobbit into a trilogy, I cannot agree that one book equals one film in this case. They should have stuck with two films, as was the original plan.

George RR Martin wishes he was Tolkien. Though to be fair, he also wishes he was Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks and any number of other fantasy authors.

It's literally the Snowpiercer problem: Either live a while as a hero realize when to stop, because if you're not careful enough you might live long enough to see yourself becoming the villain. It might very well happen to PJ, Fran and Philippa. And with a setting around the hunt for Gollum, which is literally only mentioned by Gandalf at Elrond's council in like 3-5 pages if even, this is probably bound to be a clusterf*ck.

“50 shades of precious: A Gollum Saga.”

Can’t wait for Star Wars: Jar Jar’s adventure.

I mean, sure it's only two pages and it's mostly Aragorn describing how bad Gollum smells... but HOW did Gollum get to be that smelly, huh? I'm sure we can milk at least a couple movies exploring that!

There still plenty of older series of books that could use a good movie/tv adaptation. Some that come to mind: Fantasy - Magician, The Wizards and the Warriors, Pawn of Prophecy,. Scifi - Saga of the Seven Suns, Polity, Old Mans War, Mars Trilogy, Dragonriders of Pern, Amtrac Wars, Eon, Rendezvous With Rama, any of Peter F Hamiltons stories, to name a few.

Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, Moorcock’s Elric or Corum or Runestaff series, Fritz Leiber’s Fafrhd & the Grey Mouser series… the options for awesome IP’s are endless!

As far as a great trilogy that was shelved would be the War of the Lance (Dragonlance). There are many great stories that writers have come out with since Tolkien, but the IPs get bought up and then sat on... it is really sad.

This movie could be done excellently in half an hour. A miniseries on shorter tales from Middle Earth could actually be really cool.

“Where are the Tolkeins of today?” He was the product of a world war. We have not experienced pain on that scale in 80 years. Hard times produce epic pieces of art. That’s the only way

5:01 "Where are our new franchises?" Hear fucking hear!

There's fucking TONS of great fantasy shows they could make instead. Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey would be awesome live action for instance.

Original stories in our time that deserve cinematic efforts; Galaxy's Edge series by Anspach/Cole, the Black Company by Glen Cook, Sandman Slim series by Kadrey, and on and on and on and on

LOTR: Wormtongue 4: The Admonishing

R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf books would be awesome fantasy to adapt to the screen. No idea why no one's done that. Those books have been around for decades.

I'm still amazed that Amazon managed to make the writing/story for SHADOW OF WAR look good by comparison. (Don't get me wrong those games were fun but well written they were not.)

Where are the Tolkiens of this time? Probably self publishing books onto Amazon for Kindle. Problem is not many people read anymore.

No, please no. The most bizarre part besides this shared custody of Lord of the Rings between Warner and Amazon is that there are several ages! Several characters! Several stories that deserved to be adapted, really great material! And making a Gollum movie, it's the equivalent of having all the Justice League characters that can be chosen, and you choose Jimmy Olsen as your protagonist.

Gollum's trans now and played and motion captured by Leslie Jones, of SNL and Ghostbusters 2016 fame.

They literally could have done a movie based on the Appendices if they want to milk this franchise: it would be almost impossible but at least you have something to go off (plus it could compete directly with Amazon). But no, it has to be the f-ing hunt for Gollum that is 1 paragraph long 🤡.

Smeagol to Gollum was covered by Bashki in 78' in less than five minutes. The orange can't be squeezed.

I'm looking forward to this just so I can watch the pitch meeting for it

They should have titled it, “The Hunt for Money.”

I'd rather have "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil"

When Bob Iger called making movies Ip mining; he summed up Hollywood.

Don't give them any ideas (6 films for Gollum)! Because next we'll have a Gollum prequel (his life before he became Gollum),....

It's such bizzare take away studio execs have gotten. They know Gollum is iconic, but they're conflating that with a desire to see more of him. We don't, the ammount we did see of him in the original trilogy was enough. Like I said, bizarre.

"A series about Cassian Andor? Why? Nobody asked for that. It's not necessary."

David Edding's Belgariad and Mallorean series were great and easy to digest for mass audiences

Jack Vance has a slew of fantasy and sci-fi books that are great sophisticated stories. Sadly, there is no way Hollywood could properly execute them.

Some misconceptions here. The idea of making Hobbit movies from 2 films to 3 films was entirely Jackson's idea. Jackson said in an (Exeter College) video interview (which you can search up) that he had to fly over the studio execs to persuade them to make it 3 movies. When Del Toro was in charge, it was always meant to be 2 movies. When Jackson took over it was still 2 movies initially, then Jackson got the 'clever' idea of making it 3 movies mid way through production. Also, another flaw of Hobbit movies that people blame on the studio is the love triangle. This is actually Phillipa Boyens fault (one of the writers of Hobbit and LoTR movies). Phillipa Boyens was the reason why there is a love triangle in the Hobbit. She said "we" wanted Legolas to be heart broken in a Dwarf related love triangle because then it would give him reason to hate Gimli in LOTR (Once again, she says this in an interview). So guys, don't automatically blame things on the studio when its clear that some mistakes were Jackson's fault. You could see inklings of weird directorial choices in LOTR movies that Tolkien would consider an insult (e.g depicting Frodo only as a weakling and showing no other side to him). Luckily most of LOTR movies were good so the flaws werent that obvious. You could see even more signs of Jackson's incompetence in Hobbit movies (by making silly choices as described at the begining of this comment, and also Alfrid - the Jar Jar binks of Hobbit). The Hobbit movies werent that good, so most of the flaws became much more obvious. Sadly people blame the flaws on the studio when a lot of it (not all) was Jackson's and crew's fault.

I'll take, things no one wants for $100 please

Why would anyone think this was a good idea for a popular movie? Not only is the proposed subject not appealing, but MauLer is right about how moviemakers have stumbled when they tried to overextend to where there wasn’t enough source material, for example with The Hobbit and Game of Thrones.

The audiobook of The Hobbit is around 4hrs 15mins, the Hobbit trilogy NON-extended is just under 8hrs. Half the trilogy is filler that can be fixed by simply deleting things. Its not bad because its a page by page adaptation, its bad because it went twice as long as it should have.

I was skeptical about this too, but I did a bit of research, and it seems like from various different sources, be it unfinished tales, the books appendices, and flash backs told from Gandalf’s perspective, Gollum’s whole life between Hobbit and Lord of the Rings can be accounted for and I think there is enough to make a film. After he lost the ring to Bilbo, he took about a month to leave the misty mountains as he feared the daylight. But when he finally left, Bilbo was long gone. But he picked up the trail through Mirkwood and into Dale. He only knew a name, but it was in Dale that he managed to find out that Bilbo was from the Shire. He returned through Mirkwood looking for the shire, but since he didn’t know where it was, he turned south towards Mordor instead. Here he encountered Shelob for the first time as he entered Mordor and Cirith Ungol. It was at this time that Gandalf first became suspicious that Gollum had the one ring and so he send as Aragorn to find Gollum. This film is obviously going to take 2 perspectives, one from Gollum and one from Aragon searching for Gollum. So this part of the movie, I’m less sure about. I read about Gollum, not Aragorn, so I don’t know what Aragorn was up to. But hopefully enough to fill out this movie. Maybe we could meet Arwen, or Elrond’s sons, Elledan and Elrohir who were in the LotR books but not the movies. Anyway, Aragorn is too late and Sauron finds Gollum first. Enter scenes of Barad dur being rebuilt, Saurons army being recreated and Gollum being tortured. When Gollum is finally released he escapes Mordor but is finally caught by Aragorn who takes him back to Mirkwood. Here he is interrogated by Gandalf. Also in Mirkwood, we can get what would be the main battle. Because Gollum escapes Mirkwood in the chaos of Sauron’s forces in Dol Guldur attacking Mirkwood. This is one of the front of the War of the Ring which is ignored in the films. So this would be an epic scene I think. Gollum escapes and seeks shelter in the Mines of Moria. This is where he finds the fellowship and realises that the ring is close. And then depending where they want to end this film, they could either end it in Moria with him vowing to get the ring back, or maybe even follow him as he follows the fellowship right up until he comes into contact with Frodo and Sam. But either way, I think there is enough potential there. It could be a good way of intertwining lots of smaller stories. We not only follow Gollum, but we could get the young Aragorn story mixed in which they wanted to make presumably. We could get the war in Mirkwood which would explain why Legolas’ people didn’t appear in the films. We could get a fair bit. So long as they can organically merge these stories, I see no reason why it couldn’t work. Also, this could bring back a lot of old faces as well as introducing some new ones. Like I’ve already said, we could get Gandalf, Aragorn, Arwen and Shelob but also Thranduil, Legolas, Galadriel and maybe even the Witch King. Plus, we could get an introduction to Elrohir and Elladan, maybe Glorfindel, and in what is a real stretch, but one I hope we get, I’d love to see a War in the North film exploring the battles between the Easterlings vs Erebor and Dale. If Gollum does travel to Dale in this film, perhaps they could introduce key players in the War in the north to connect to that story. Maybe Brand or Bard II. There is such a lot of potential I believe. Far more than Rings of Power. Afterall, Tolkien said the second age was not worth talking about. That’s why Rings of Power decided they could do better and write their own stories. But Jackson and Serkis and team chose a seemingly less significant story, but one which Tolkien has actually written a fair amount about. Gollum between stories. Aragorn as a ranger. The war in Mirkwood. Maybe even some background on the fall of Balin in Moria. It’s all possible. All based around the travels of Gollum. I really think this could be a good way to flesh out this world a bit more and I’m here for it. Also bring on War in the North film. I really want to see Dain take on Easterlings. That would be so cool.