NEED TO KNOW
“There’s a character in the movie called Frodo and there’s another character called Gandalf,” McKellen told an audience. “Apart from that, my lips are sealed”
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, directed by and starring Andy Serkis, is currently scheduled to release Dec. 17, 2027
Sir Ian McKellen is seemingly preparing to don his wizard robes once more.
McKellen, 86, teased Lord of the Rings fans at the For the Love of Fantasy fan event in London on Sunday, Aug. 17, when he suggested that he and Elijah Wood will reprise their beloved roles as Gandalf and Frodo in Andy Serkis’ upcoming movie The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
“I hear there’s going to be another movie set in Middle-earth, and it’s going to start filming in May. It’s going to be directed by Gollum and it’s all about Gollum, but I’ll tell you two secrets about the casting,” McKellen said in a video from the event shared to TikTok by an attendee.
“There’s a character in the movie called Frodo and there’s another character called Gandalf,” he added, to applause. “Apart from that, my lips are sealed.”
While McKellen did not specify that he and Wood, 44, will reprise the roles themselves, Wood was also in attendance at the fan event alongside the pair’s Lord of the Rings costars Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, and John Rhys-Davies, according to Entertainment Weekly.
A representative for Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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Warner Bros. first announced that Serkis, 61, will reprise his role as Gollum and direct a movie focused on the character in May 2024. Peter Jackson, who directed the previous six live-action Lord of the Rings movies, will produce the film with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, the screenwriters who adapted author J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels for the screen. Walsh and Boyens are writing the new movie’s screenplay with Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, who wrote last year’s animated movie The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
At that time, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema also shared that Jackson, Walsh and Boeyns would produce a second movie set in Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth, though no new information about the other project has been shared yet.
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“Yesssss, Precious. The time has come once more to venture into the unknown with my dear friends, the extraordinary and incomparable guardians of Middle-earth, Peter, Fran and Philippa,” Serkis said in a release, echoing his character Gollum’s manner of speaking. “With Mike and Pam, and the Warner Bros team on the quest as well, alongside WETA and our filmmaking family in New Zealand, it’s just all too delicious.…”
McKellen previously said he wanted to reprise his role as Gandalf in a September 2024 interview with Big Issue, but at that time, he said he didn’t know when filming would begin. “I’ve just been told there are going to be more films and Gandalf will be involved and they hope that I’ll be playing him,” he shared at that time. “When? I don’t know. What the script is? It’s not written yet. So they better be quick!”
The Hunt for Gollum is currently scheduled to release Dec. 17, 2027.
