LOTR The Hunt For Gollum release date pushed back, says Andy Serkis

Fans clamoring for Gollum’s return to Middle-earth will have to wait a little longer.

In an interview with The Direct, Andy Serkis revealed that Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum has been delayed by one year.

“Yeah, it is not 2026,” Serkis said about The Hunt for Gollum’s release date. “It was originally going to be December 2026. It is going to be December 2027.”

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Warner Bros. has not officially announced the new release date. However, Serkis is the director and star of the film. If anyone knows why the movie will be pushed, it’s the actor playing Gollum. Serkis shared a production update and when cameras might start rolling.

“We are right at the beginning of the writing process,” Serkis said. “We will be prepping later this year. Prep takes a good chunk of time, six or seven months, and then we will be shooting next year. So, it backs into that December 2027 release date.”

In May 2024, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group announced that two new films from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth were in development. The award-winning team of Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens is returning to produce both films for Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema.

The first movie is The Hunt for Gollum. Serkis will direct and star as Gollum, a role he famously played in The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. Walsh and Boyens will pen the screenplay alongside Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou. Executive producers include Serkis, Ken Kamins, and Jonathan Cavendish.