Peter Jackson And Andy Serkis Are Reuniting For A NEW Lord Of The Rings Movie!

Warner Bros. will release the first of its new batch of “The Lord of the Rings” films in 2026, which will focus on Andy Serkis’s Gollum.

Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.

In a press release from Warner Bros. later Thursday morning, the studio revealed that the working title for the film is “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” and it will be directed by and star Serkis in his iconic titular role. The film will be executive produced by Ken Kamins, with Serkis and The Imaginarium’s Jonathan Cavendish.

This news is a bit of a rollercoaster. On the one hand, we are getting a new LOTR movie which is awesome! The original trilogy is arguably the best ever made in the history of cinema! Not only did it absolutely dismantle the box office, but was a critical darling as well. People forget that 'Return of the King' currently holds the record for most Oscar wins for a single movie! Anyway, the LOTR world and lore is obviously amazing and people have been dying for more of it. So to get a new movie with Peter Jackson producing and Andy Serkis, who gave a legit shakespearean performance as Gollum while pioneering the industry of motion capture, back on board is a great thing. 

There are, however, two things that give me pause. 

1. Andy Serkis as a director. He's made 2 mediocre movies in 'Breathe' and 'Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle' and made arguably the worst superhero movie in recent memory, 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage'. Other than that, he's only done second unit directing on the hobbit trilogy. None of that instils confidence in me. Again, he is an AMAZING actor but directing might just not be his thing. 

2. Peter Jackson's post-Lord of the Rings work. in the 20 years since LOTR, he's only directed 5 feature films: 'King Kong', 'The Lovely Bones' and the Hobbit Trilogy. 'King Kong' was ok, 'The Lovely Bones' was badddd and the Hobbit Trilogy was just a mess. Lets focus on the trilogy, though. 

I refuse to put all of the blame on him for how they turned out because the studio is responsible for splitting up what should have been a single movie into a trilogy in order to make more money. However, its almost hard to believe that the two trilogies were directed by the same guy. The Hobbit made basically the same mistakes as George Lucas' second trilogy, relying wayyyyy too much on shitty CGI and abandoning character development. Just a gross-looking trio of movies to look at. Jackson's producing tenure is also a bit of a mixed bag, with one massive hit in 'District 9' and a couple of misses in 'The Adventures of Tintin' and 'Mortal Engines'. Honestly, his best work since LOTR has been in the documentary world where he made two great ones in 'They Shall Not Grow Old' and 'The Beatles: Get Back'. 

If this new movie was directed by Jackson and starring Serkis, sign me up. They're responsible for some of the best scenes in fantasy filmmaking ever! But this dynamic just has me a little hesitant. That said, I'm still gonna be excited. Especially for more info on the plot. There was actually a fan-made short with the same title made back in 2009 which nearly 14 million views but it's hard to say if that's what they're going for. 

Until this gets made, LOTR fans can look forward to 
- The Rings of Power S2 (no specific date yet but later this year)
- The War of the Rohirrim (also later this year)