Warner Bros. has announced new cast for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum with Jamie Dornan playing Strider –an alias used by Aragorn — and Leo Woodall playing Halvard. (Strider was played in the previous LOTR films by Viggo Mortensen.)
Andy Serkis, who is directing, will reprise his role of Gollum, with Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen returning as Frodo and Gandalf. Lee Pace also is back as Thranduil. Deadline previously reported that Kate Winslet will be joining the film in the role of Marigol.
The news came during the studio’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Tuesday afternoon.
A return to New Line’s Middle-earth franchise, which is based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hunt for Gollum follows Aragorn’s perilous quest to capture Gollum before the creature can reveal the Ring’s location to Sauron. The story, much of it developed from Tolkien’s footnotes, is set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.
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Gollum/Sméagol voice actor Serkis directs, with Wood as Frodo Baggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Serkis as Gollum — roles the three have played since Peter Jackson directed them in 2001’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. That trilogy also features 2002’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which won the Best Picture Oscar.
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Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou penned The Hunt for Gollum‘s script, with Jackson, Boyens, Walsh and Zane Weiner set to produce. The film is slated for release on December 17, 2027.
Previous installments in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies have grossed nearly $6 billion worldwide in total. The new movie marks the first live-action theatrical return to Tolkien’s world for Warner Bros. since The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. It comes on the heels of the 2024 anime The War of the Rohirrim.
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