The newest live-action addition to The Lord of the Rings movies, tentatively titled The Hunt for Gollum, could easily feature two major actors from the original trilogy returning to their roles. After Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, several attempts have been made to recreate his first trilogy’s success. Those attempts included live-action films like The Hobbit trilogy as well as TV shows like The Rings of Power, along with an upcoming animated film, War of the Rohirrim. Now, new plans to continue the franchise have been revealed.
Warner Brothers recently announced it will make new live-action Lord of the Rings movies, the first of which being The Hunt for Gollum. The upcoming movie will be directed by and star Andy Serkis, the original actor who portrayed both Gollum and Smeagol. Serkis isn’t The Hunt for Gollum‘s only connection to the original trilogy, though, and he might not even be the only returning character or cast member. The Hunt for Gollum will likely include two major The Lord of the Rings characters, and it could even feature their original actors as well.
The Hunt for Gollum is based on a story found in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, and as such, it also includes some characters from the novels. Two of those characters were major players in the original story, and will likely appear in the upcoming movie adaptation: Aragorn and Gandalf. In the original story, Gandalf sent Aragorn after Gollum to prevent him from revealing information about the One Ring to Sauron. Since they were such major characters in the story, it seems natural that Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen could reprise their roles as Aragorn and Gandalf, respectively.
The movie adaptation of The Hunt for Gollum could, however, make significant changes to the original short story. It will likely have to at least add some plot points, as there simply isn’t enough original material to turn into a feature-length film. Despite how likely changes are, Aragorn and Gandalf’s involvement probably won’t be one of them. They’re two of the most recognizable and important characters in the entire franchise, and seeing Mortensen and McKellen return to their iconic roles would be a major draw for The Hunt for Gollum. However, there’s also a major problem that it has to solve first.
The original story The Hunt for Gollum is based on took place before the events of The Lord of the Rings. Because of its place in the timeline, both Aragorn and Gandalf would be almost the exact same age as they were in the original trilogy of movies, if not younger. However, the original trilogy of Lord of the Rings movies came out over 20 years ago, and both Mortensen and McKellen have aged since then. That’s not much of a problem for McKellen, since Gandalf has always been portrayed as an older man, and Istari, or wizards, age differently than humans.
The timeline of The Hunt for Gollum presents a bigger concern for Mortensen, however. Aragorn is a regular human, so he should look about the same as he did in The Fellowship of the Ring, but Mortensen is now older than McKellen was in the original movies. There are a few ways that problem could be solved, such as through makeup or digital de-aging technology, but neither of those are perfect solutions. There is another notable solution to the problem of Aragorn’s age, but it could cause even more problems than it solves.
While The Hunt for Gollum could simply recast Aragorn, there are a few reasons it would suffer from that decision. Both Mortensen and McKellen are iconic and beloved parts of the franchise, and whatever actors would be chosen to replace them would have a very tough time matching their performances. Additionally, recasting them would make The Hunt for Gollum miss out on the massive opportunity to see them in their iconic roles once more. That could cause the movie to have a smaller audience, as the original trilogy’s biggest fans wouldn’t have as much cause to see The Hunt for Gollum anymore.