Lord of the Rings Hunt for Gollum first footage released

Production is underway on 2027's Lord of the Rings spinoff

Actor-director Andy Serkis is back in the motion capture suit and behind the camera for next year's The Lord of the Rings spinoff The Hunt for Gollum. While we still have more than a year to wait to see how The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum turns out, Warner Bros. Pictures offered an early sneak peek at the film's production on Tuesday.

In some brief behind-the-scenes footage, we see Serkis in the suit that made him famous. On day one of production, Serkis is getting ready to go Gollum mode, filming his part on a motion-capture stage in a silver suit. The actor behind Gollum gets into his familiar crouch, adopts Smeagol's raspy voice, and calls "Action!"

That snippet of footage obviously doesn't reveal much, but anyone potentially worried that the entirety of The Hunt for Gollum will be filmed on sound stages and virtual sets like the Volume needn't worry. Warner's peek at the upcoming Lord of the Rings film also shows what appears to be location filming in New Zealand, where Peter Jackson filmed the original LOTR trilogy.

Tuesday's behind-the-scenes peek at The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum serves as an announcement that the film has officially entered production. That's perhaps a bit surprising, considering that Warner Bros. announced plans to make new Lord of the Rings movies back in 2023, and that The Hunt for Gollum was originally slated for a 2026 release. But casting for the Gollum-focused spinoff has only been recently announced. Starring in The Hunt for Gollum are Kate Winslet as Marigol, Anya Taylor-Joy as Seren, Jamie Dornan as Strider, and Leo Woodall as Halvard. Joining them will be returning Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit actors Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, and Lee Pace as Thranduil.

Serkis, of course, returns to portray Gollum/Smeagol and is directing the film, which was written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou. Serkis recently confirmed that he plans to digitally de-age certain actors to match the film's place in the Lord of the Rings timeline, which is set during the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Hunt for Gollum will cover the time between Bilbo’s 111th birthday and Gandalf’s return to the Shire, events covered in the first chapters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, but cut from Jackson's 2001 film. Gandalf enlisted Aragorn to track down Gollum so he could learn where Bilbo’s ring came from and whether it was actually the One Ring that Sauron was searching for.

The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is slated for a theatrical release on Dec. 17, 2027. It’s currently scheduled to hit theaters on the same day as Marvel Studios' Avengers: Secret Wars, setting up another Barbenheimer-style double feature, similar to this year's "Dunesday" match up between Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday.

There's even more live-action Lord of the Rings to come. Warner Bros. is also working on another live-action LOTR project, which is tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past. Prime Video's prequel series The Rings of Power will get its third season later this year.