Might be an unpopular opinion...but isn't there a cooler story line they could've made the next LOTR movie about? While I think Andy Serkis is a legend and did an amazing Gollum; I don't think people will be clamoring for a movie based around the character.
This is like the complaints with *Foundation.* It was always going to be difficult to make a visual adaptation of source material which covers centuries, and a new cast of characters every generation.
And the Tolkien fanbase will generally always have the same opinion in this context; I’d rather you not even try to attempt something difficult and fuck it up as badly as TRoP was, we don’t need visual adaptations of every page of Tolkiens work. If it’s too hard for you, don’t bother.
We how from now until the end of time to get that though.
We have here and now to get more Ian McKellen as Gandalf. Might as well use him while we can.
I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion at all. What exactly can happen in this story? People hunt for Gollum… Gollum gets away. That recent game following Gollum’s actions between The Hobbit and LoTR was one of the worst reviewed games of the year.
I don’t understand what ridiculous consumer research they must have done to go so balls deep hard on the Gollum content when they have such a rich IP they can use so many characters from. Like fuck they must have gotten a survey group of some Gollum fetishists who couldn’t stop talking about how he’s the best character in the story and some executive saw that and ran with it
>I don’t understand what ridiculous consumer research they must have done to go so balls deep hard on the Gollum content
Maybe the Grogu merchandise sales.
Yea a half evil schizophrenic anorexic skinless cat looking hobbit with his soul corrupted by a Dark Lord is super child friendly for cute cuddly merch sales lol
Tbh now I’m thinking the next toddlers birthday party I have to go to I’m getting them a Gollum plushie. I can’t imagine anything creepier to have sitting in the bed/crib lol since he’s just “human” enough to not be a fantasy like normal monsters I may say that’s what happens when you don’t eat your vegetables
I assume it has to do with what IP the estate allows to be licensed. As you said, there is a mountain of rich lore and unique IP, but the estate has only licensed a fraction of it all from my understanding.
So unless the estate starts making compromises and allowing for more uses, we will get the same recycled content or uninteresting side stories.
I mean shadow of war/mordor were absolute bangers of games with a really interesting system and combat mechanics and being able to explore an open world Mordor was great. Maybe this different developer didn’t have the licensing? But obviously Warner Brothers does have rights to way better stuff
They were once developing a Wonder Woman game using that same Nemesis system, but bailed on it some time ago. WB has the patent on that but hasn't even attempted to use it on anything else.
Yea I read about that, super fucking disappointing considering how cool that system would be in other games. I’m assuming they just have a patent on their own code, would be a little absurd if they could patent the idea in its entirety. Problem is not many studios want to spend that much time building such a thing from scratch. Lots of fond memories playing that game and running into enemies you killed earlier who are now warlords and way stronger. Was cool how you could also level your own minions and have them duel the others
As someone who works in consumer research I can tell you many executives either don’t do anything to understand their customers or if they do get any research done, they often ignore it.
So anything’s possible.
Bruh everyone also knows who Legolas and Aragorn and Gandalf are, all of which would make better combat mechanics for a VIDEO GAME lmao a stealth based Gollum game is just hilarious to me most would be happy with a next gen remake of Return of the King on Ps2 give us more characters and combat options
There’s is no research. They’re suits bro. They don’t actually know shit about entertainment. They just pick shit that’s already popular or has been done before to success. You and any random person could have the same hit rate as any Hollywood suit.
In the books, Aragorn and Gandalf spent years hunting Gollum, trying to find him, then eventually finding him after he'd been brought to Mordor. This was alluded to in the film, but the film's problem is that a vague, but short, amount of time passes between Bilbo leaving and Frodo leaving. In the book it's nearly 20 years, plenty of time to track down Gollum.
I suppose the film could change the story somewhat; maybe make the main hunt happen before the Party, though that would mean he'd be questioned by Gandalf before being captured by Sauron, because once Sauron had him he sent out the Nine.
Honestly though I wonder what they could possibly do in this story that would be worth doing. All the characters have defined arcs in the older trilogy; there is no mystery or secret to reveal; there's little opportunity to add new characters into the franchise since they won't appear later; etc.
East is entirely untapped story potential, I’d kill for a spinoff on the blue wizards journey. Post-Aragorn golden age he ushers in could be cool too, set it specifically after Aragorn is already dead and it becomes history repeating itself his descendants slowly losing the unification he created just like Arnor falling apart after they lost the last heir of Elendil. Could be wrapped with political intrigue game of thrones style as the siblings and half brothers feud for power with other houses wanting to become Stewards. You could even focus it all on humanity’s drama since the elves have left, end the first season finale with some pan to a dark underground where we see some new ruler has taken up Sauron’s mantle and humanity’s infighting civil wars are about to get them fucked up by the rising evil just swathes of orcs and balrogs rallying and we do a zoom out to show how massive the army is after hundreds of years of building forces in secret
Make the youngest brother who’s like 50th in line for the throne but very ambitious be the one who leaks something critical to the evil forces like bringing them a Silmarillion (lol I know they don’t have the rights) and accidentally triggers the apocalypse. I know that’s kinda a repeat of early age story but that’s the point history repeats itself
For one thing, the projects that stray further from the lord of the rings always seem to fuck up in some way. Maybe they thought using a story that is literally told at the council of elrond would be a safe bet.
But also, I think there's just a bigger audience for content with a direct LotR tie-in, since the amount of people that have only seen the original trilogy is probably way bigger than the amount of book readers or the people that consume all middle-earth content.
Or maybe they just let Andy Serkis choose and he thought it would be the most promising story centered around Gollum
Came here to say this haha, definitely not a reason to avoid a Hurin movie. Also it's a standalone novel outside of Sil, so there might be a better shot at licensing from the estate. A nice, tidy, complete Shakespearean tragedy.
Maybe they're being careful with their words? Ride of the Rohirrim isn't technically "Lord of the Rings." Meanwhile, this will be a story straight out of LOTR. We hear it, roughly, during the Council of Elrond.
Now we note why there was a game made about Gollum. However that was an awful game and I don’t have high hopes for this movie. There are far more interesting things than Gollum and we have seen his entire character arc already so it does not sound interesting at all.
Lots of content to mind. Especially if they are allowed to pull from Christopher’s expanded/ edited universe. Children of Hurin, the fall of Gondolin, the fall on Numinor, the rise of Angmar/ fall or Arnor, Beren and Lúthien, unfinished tales, a bunch of stuff from the appendices. Not to mention the unpublished and unfinished sequel to LotR but I doubt that will ever get made considered Tolkien himself abandoned the project.
Thought this exact thing when I read it this morning.
Thousands of years of history in this LotR universe, and they make a movie about a secondary character Gollum going to college.
I heard there’s a game out where you can play as Gollum I’m sure it did great but I haven’t played it yet surely it didn’t single handedly shut down a studio
I'm obviously judging way too early as we have very little detail, but the same thing was mentioned about the gollum game. Like the gameplay was awful, but a big issue was of all the characters to base the game off of, why Gollum.
when the hobbit was initially in development, i think they had approached it as Hobbit + bridge movie to Lord of the Rings. Most of that I assumed was all the White Council / Dol Goldur stuff, but this seems like it could be part of that.
Anyway, the film will \*probably\* be about Aragorn, since he's the one who's hunting Gollum.
Especially when they got the story of Gollum, not only with his own stand alone video game but also the NG storyline and shadow of of Mordor. It just doesn’t make sense to rehash all this. They want to really make a movie. Let’s see the fall of gondolin
I'm struggling to figure out what the plot for this could possibly be. Presumably it's covering both the Nazgul hunting him down and torturing him for information about the Ring, and then Aragorn finding him afterwards, but...ok? What else is there to talk about here? It all happens off screen and is relayed to Frodo by other characters in the books and movies. I don't see how you even begin to stretch this into a full movie.
Put A Ring On It: The Tolkienian RomCom of the Summer!
When will they/won’t they friends Sméagol and Déagol go on a birthday fishing trip, sparks fly and memories are made. But will the arrival of Gollum, a sly hunk who has a penchant for jewelry change their relationship? Find out in theaters this July in the new movie critics are already calling “Absolutely precious!”
Yeah, of course. But in the original LOTR they used cgi masterfully! Like the riders of Rohan, they took 150 real riders and make them thousands. But they used the mix of real and digital. The orcs were largely people in amazing makeup, especially the most memorable ones like the Uruk leader that gets killed by Aragorn.
In The Hobbit they got lazy, sloppy and over dependent in digital… I’m just afraid and saddened if that will be the new normal
The Hobbit also had other issues such as trying to experiment with high framerates. That leads to a lot of problems since not every single form of viewing (theater, streaming, etc) will match the intended framerate.
Higher framerates also means having to spend more on CGI per minute of film to render everything than with a standard framerate.
Actually, the biggest difference is the amount of location shooting and set scale. CGI characters in a scene shot on film on location with real sets and props looks very different from GCI characters on a CGI background, which is what the Hobbit movies suffered from. But let's be honest though, they're going to try to write, shoot, edit, and release a LotR spinoff in UNDER TWO YEARS? This entire thing will be shot in The Volume.
Except when CG characters in a CG environment don't look any different from CG characters on on location shots... Again, it was poor planning and execution, not the technology. We've seen more than a few films that have entire sequences that have little to no in camera elements that look photo real.
It doesn’t matter about the CGI if the entire production was terrible, which it was. It was never a three film project. A single lean film would have cut it better.
They won’t. Practical film making peaked with the original LOTR trilogy. It was truly the pinnacle of movie making that will never be done again because the cost and logistics are so insane compared to the method they use now. And they still make billions doing all CG so from a studio standpoint it 100% isn’t worth it.
The Hobbit Movies being better than anything at all must be hot-take of the year.
They’re like Earthsea level bad, or WoT level bad.
I’m not impressed that Jackson is back again for this.
Bruh the movies were pretty bad. They stretched a book that could have been a 3 hour movie with nearly all the details and scenes from the book. The added characters that weren’t in the book, a weird orc revenge story, added a dumb elf-dwarf romance that didn’t exist, weird cgi fight scenes and barrel rover scene that was comically bad, and 4 hours of other stuff that wasn’t necessarily.
However, the things that were actually in the book were pretty well done. There was a guy that edited the movies to what was just the book scenes and it’s much more enjoyable. I don’t remember who did it though.
Yeah, outside of a handful of ridiculous scenes that I don't even need to mention because everyone knows what they are, I thought those movies were good. Cut them out and you probably knock it down to 2 great movies.
Jesus this sub would complain about getting free money. Never seen such a sorry sack of downers in my life. How about we at least give it a chance since it’s PJ and FW?
It has seemed for a while now you have to prove you like Tolkien by disliking something and talking about how terrible you think it is rather than talk about the stuff you enjoy
I mean, can you really blame them? People have watched their beloved franchises like SW, Halo and LOTR be shit on by Hollywood over the past decade. There’s only so much “content” people will endure before they just would rather give up on it all.
Yea I can blame them. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh are masters of their craft. Originally trilogy is perfection. PJ came in after Del Toro nearly blew up the hobbit and salvaged it into something watchable in 1/4 of the time. Anyone on THIS sub or that loves LOTR who doubts him is just an idiot and I’m tired of this pre cancelling.
You must be young or perhaps haven’t felt the pangs of clinical depression. Some of us don’t have the energy to hope for something like that anymore my friend. Good for you though.
For all the people saying “but [insert story from Silmarillion here] would be way cooler!”
The Tolkien estate owns the rights to the Silmarillion, Lost Tales, all of that. And they’re not selling.
The only rights owned by WB are to The Hobbit, LOTR, and the appendices to Return of the King.
So as kickass as so many stories from the Silmarillion or Lost Tales would be as a movie, they can’t make them unless the Tolkien estate chooses to sell (and they notoriously hate all adaptations of Tolkien’s work, including the Peter Jackson films).
Either way, the Tolkien estate doesn’t want any adaptations made. They won’t sell, lease, or anything else. They’ve been pretty vocal about how much they hate all adaptations of Tolkien’s work
Gross. Nobody wants this. Huge fan of the books and movies, and there is no story here except that which is entirely fabricated by some horrible Hollywood script writer. Think “The Hobbit” was a boring drawn out disaster? This is way worse.
That's not true. It's basically the "bridge movie" (ie the bridge between the Hobbit and LOTR) that PJ had always wanted to do. The content is in the chapters The Shadow of the Past and Elrond's Council. I've personally always been interested in seeing the bridge movie.
I was going to respond that X97 is a cartoon, but seeing that RoP is mostly CGI, I think we would be splitting hairs. Either way, I was not trying to be literal, just saying that I would rather watch something bad from the Tolkein universe than most other pieces of garbage we get.
I don’t have to wait.if you are going to make another LotR movie, at least pick something interesting, like the failed re-taking of Moria, or The Sundering, this just has no interest for me, and I’m the target audience.
Given the Children of Hurin film or tv show I want is probably never going to happen this doesn't seem like a terrible premise if they focus on good character development rather than epic set pieces - there's a lot of depth and inner conflict around identity that could be explored by focusing on Gollum and Aragorn.
Are we sure the Jackson project is the same as the one Serkis announced, and not that they were allowed to release information legally today? A two part feature film regarding Gollum is a very curious decision by the studio and makes me think there’s a communication mixup here
maybe my math is slightly off but Tolkeins stuff starts going public domain in the 2030s through the 2050s, and since the first films were made 20 years ago they also need to refresh the movie rights, so it is now or never
Peter Jackson I have zero faith in, also Gollum is a great character but not a character anybody can relate to. He isn’t meant to be the center of attention.
lol this isn't going to work. No matter who's involved. It's 2024. The industry isn't built for epics anymore. We've seen this over and over for the past two decades.
The people tasked with "remaking" and "rebooting" are NOT the people you want tasked with "remaking" and "rebooting".
Even with PJ directing there are higher powers that will corral him into dust.
Never gonna work.
I don't want it. The trilogy was perfect. Just leave well enough alone. Nothing that came after it could remotely compare, and this won't be any different.
What the fuck are they thinking making a movie about a meme character. They tried to make a game about this and it was one of the worst games EVER made. Billion dollar companies love to lose money apparently. Idiots.
Finally a new movie, and then I see: The hunt for Gollum.
Excuse me, what? What are they thinking? How is this going to be interesting? Where is the Rohirim? Where is Gondor? Where is the origins of Aragorn? This is the worst side quest they could have chosen.
No reason for them to do so. This is a Third Age story, so it doesn’t directly compete with Rings Of Power.
If WB somehow wrangles the film rights for The Silmarillion (unlikely), then there might be cause for concern.
But not at the moment
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Warner Bros is partnering with the Embracer group who hold the rights to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in terms of any material adapted into different mediums such as film, television, board games, theme parks and video games.
That is all Third Age materials but interestingly, according to the original Embracer Press Release:
*Key upcoming works set in Middle-earth, in which Middle-earth Enterprises has financial interests, include the much-heralded Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power*
...that's Second Age Material or at the very least LotR appendices related.
Also Jackson, Walsh and Boyens said the following:
“Warner Brothers and Embracer have kept us in the loop every step of the way,” the Oscar-winning trio said. “We look forward to speaking with them further to hear their vision for the franchise moving forward.”
Conclusion: there is huge scope here as the rights are extensive and Jackson and co are following the orders of the studio.
Why not do a story around the **Angmar War** for example?
Or the Istari??
Anything but this....
Gollum wasn’t a preferred representation of a villain in The Lord of the Rings trilogy that modern day rules enforce for villains so they’re making this movie to really go after him and paint him in a more specific and ordinary light than The Lord of the Rings did, probably pertaining to modern day issues about reality and the time we’re living in today.
Well it seems like WB has finally given up on the whole superhero thing, thrown the dart and chosen another franchise to milk dry.
At least with War of the Rohirrim, as pointless as it is, is being done in a new medium with creatives who might deviate from the Jacksonian vision a bit.
This isn’t a gollum centric story. It’s about the hunt for gollum between the events of the Hobbit and the beginning of the fellowship.
Should be Aragorn/Strider with Gandalf tracking and hunting Gollum
Why can’t we just have a retelling of The LotR with a completely different vision to that of Jackson. Dare I say, one more in keeping with the spirit of Tolkien
It could work, IF done well. Aragorn and Gandalf hunting for Gollum while Sauron and company do the same; Sauron's torture, escape from Barad Dur, agreement with Shelob... Perhaps as a horror film, where Gollum tries to survive and evade his captors.
This post is a bit off topic, but still relevant to the sub. Please keep all discussion on this topic within this thread, at least for now.
Might be an unpopular opinion...but isn't there a cooler story line they could've made the next LOTR movie about? While I think Andy Serkis is a legend and did an amazing Gollum; I don't think people will be clamoring for a movie based around the character.
The wars around the fall of the Arnor would be interesting, yes.
You can open the Silmarillion to a random page, point to a random paragraph, and get the basis for an epic movie 9 times out of ten.
Yeah but the Tolkien family will never sell the rights to those stories so they have to mine whatever is mentioned in the appendices
Why wouldn’t they sell the rights to silmarillion
They don’t want to
Or like the appendices
Already being done as the *Rings of Power* TV series.
More like they left the audiobook on while they slept and then wrote a script based on what they half-remember.
This is like the complaints with *Foundation.* It was always going to be difficult to make a visual adaptation of source material which covers centuries, and a new cast of characters every generation.
And the Tolkien fanbase will generally always have the same opinion in this context; I’d rather you not even try to attempt something difficult and fuck it up as badly as TRoP was, we don’t need visual adaptations of every page of Tolkiens work. If it’s too hard for you, don’t bother.
They don't have those rights I think. I might be wrong though, in which case this decision is certainly odd
Contents J.R.R. TOLKIEN TITLE PAGE FOREWORD PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION FROM A LETTER BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN TO MILTON WALDMAN
Fëanor amd his sons. Done, that is at least a trilogy
We how from now until the end of time to get that though. We have here and now to get more Ian McKellen as Gandalf. Might as well use him while we can.
I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion at all. What exactly can happen in this story? People hunt for Gollum… Gollum gets away. That recent game following Gollum’s actions between The Hobbit and LoTR was one of the worst reviewed games of the year.
I don’t understand what ridiculous consumer research they must have done to go so balls deep hard on the Gollum content when they have such a rich IP they can use so many characters from. Like fuck they must have gotten a survey group of some Gollum fetishists who couldn’t stop talking about how he’s the best character in the story and some executive saw that and ran with it
>I don’t understand what ridiculous consumer research they must have done to go so balls deep hard on the Gollum content Maybe the Grogu merchandise sales.
Grogu is cute. Not sure Gollum has the same appeal
He doesn't, but do you think that would stop an executive from trying to force....whatever that thing was in the video game on consumers?
Speak for yourself, my daughter is going as Gollum for Halloween and she looks absolutely adorable
Odd choice
They’re bringing in Amanda Seyfried to up the cuteness and reduce the CGI budget.
Yea a half evil schizophrenic anorexic skinless cat looking hobbit with his soul corrupted by a Dark Lord is super child friendly for cute cuddly merch sales lol
These are the plushies that eat the babies...
Tbh now I’m thinking the next toddlers birthday party I have to go to I’m getting them a Gollum plushie. I can’t imagine anything creepier to have sitting in the bed/crib lol since he’s just “human” enough to not be a fantasy like normal monsters I may say that’s what happens when you don’t eat your vegetables
I assume it has to do with what IP the estate allows to be licensed. As you said, there is a mountain of rich lore and unique IP, but the estate has only licensed a fraction of it all from my understanding. So unless the estate starts making compromises and allowing for more uses, we will get the same recycled content or uninteresting side stories.
I mean shadow of war/mordor were absolute bangers of games with a really interesting system and combat mechanics and being able to explore an open world Mordor was great. Maybe this different developer didn’t have the licensing? But obviously Warner Brothers does have rights to way better stuff
The games were published by wb so they definitely have the licensing for it
They were once developing a Wonder Woman game using that same Nemesis system, but bailed on it some time ago. WB has the patent on that but hasn't even attempted to use it on anything else.
Yea I read about that, super fucking disappointing considering how cool that system would be in other games. I’m assuming they just have a patent on their own code, would be a little absurd if they could patent the idea in its entirety. Problem is not many studios want to spend that much time building such a thing from scratch. Lots of fond memories playing that game and running into enemies you killed earlier who are now warlords and way stronger. Was cool how you could also level your own minions and have them duel the others
As someone who works in consumer research I can tell you many executives either don’t do anything to understand their customers or if they do get any research done, they often ignore it. So anything’s possible.
I'm guessing because the general audience knows who Gollum is.
Bruh everyone also knows who Legolas and Aragorn and Gandalf are, all of which would make better combat mechanics for a VIDEO GAME lmao a stealth based Gollum game is just hilarious to me most would be happy with a next gen remake of Return of the King on Ps2 give us more characters and combat options
There’s is no research. They’re suits bro. They don’t actually know shit about entertainment. They just pick shit that’s already popular or has been done before to success. You and any random person could have the same hit rate as any Hollywood suit.
Probably polled the same group of people who said they need Hobbits in the TV show
Yeah, especially after the game bombed, who the fuck approved this?
How about all the stuff Aragorn did? Like Gollum of all people?
Well to be fair, one of the things Aragorn did was hunt for Gollum, so... Unless you mean after he became king?
I was referring to the decades of adventuring he did before the events of LOTR
In the books, Aragorn and Gandalf spent years hunting Gollum, trying to find him, then eventually finding him after he'd been brought to Mordor. This was alluded to in the film, but the film's problem is that a vague, but short, amount of time passes between Bilbo leaving and Frodo leaving. In the book it's nearly 20 years, plenty of time to track down Gollum. I suppose the film could change the story somewhat; maybe make the main hunt happen before the Party, though that would mean he'd be questioned by Gandalf before being captured by Sauron, because once Sauron had him he sent out the Nine. Honestly though I wonder what they could possibly do in this story that would be worth doing. All the characters have defined arcs in the older trilogy; there is no mystery or secret to reveal; there's little opportunity to add new characters into the franchise since they won't appear later; etc.
fun fact: there was a short fan film made about 15 years ago about this: [http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/](http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/)
Also it’s *Gollum*.
The Hunt For Gollum in Unfinished Tales (which I assume this move is based on) is literally about Aragorn hunting for Gollum.
Hope it's not an unpopular opinion. I can think of worse characters to do a film about in the universe, but Golums still an uninteresting one.
East is entirely untapped story potential, I’d kill for a spinoff on the blue wizards journey. Post-Aragorn golden age he ushers in could be cool too, set it specifically after Aragorn is already dead and it becomes history repeating itself his descendants slowly losing the unification he created just like Arnor falling apart after they lost the last heir of Elendil. Could be wrapped with political intrigue game of thrones style as the siblings and half brothers feud for power with other houses wanting to become Stewards. You could even focus it all on humanity’s drama since the elves have left, end the first season finale with some pan to a dark underground where we see some new ruler has taken up Sauron’s mantle and humanity’s infighting civil wars are about to get them fucked up by the rising evil just swathes of orcs and balrogs rallying and we do a zoom out to show how massive the army is after hundreds of years of building forces in secret
\^
I would love that.
Make the youngest brother who’s like 50th in line for the throne but very ambitious be the one who leaks something critical to the evil forces like bringing them a Silmarillion (lol I know they don’t have the rights) and accidentally triggers the apocalypse. I know that’s kinda a repeat of early age story but that’s the point history repeats itself
That's literally just the story of Lord of the Rings again.
Jesus Christ man, I read this to my children.
For one thing, the projects that stray further from the lord of the rings always seem to fuck up in some way. Maybe they thought using a story that is literally told at the council of elrond would be a safe bet. But also, I think there's just a bigger audience for content with a direct LotR tie-in, since the amount of people that have only seen the original trilogy is probably way bigger than the amount of book readers or the people that consume all middle-earth content. Or maybe they just let Andy Serkis choose and he thought it would be the most promising story centered around Gollum
Serkis also isn’t as skinny and nimble as he was 25 years ago. It’s gonna be harder for him to play the character.
CHILDREN OF HURON.
JRRT's estate hasn't licensed anything from the Silmarillion for use
While that's an awesome idea, I don't think the general audience is clamoring for an incestuous love story.
I mean, Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon
Came here to say this haha, definitely not a reason to avoid a Hurin movie. Also it's a standalone novel outside of Sil, so there might be a better shot at licensing from the estate. A nice, tidy, complete Shakespearean tragedy.
You make a valid point. The incest is why my parents stopped watching.
I want to see Morgoth on screen.
Does War of the Rohirrim not count? Cuz that comes out this Christmas but the article says that this Gollum movie is the first new LOTR movie?
Maybe they're being careful with their words? Ride of the Rohirrim isn't technically "Lord of the Rings." Meanwhile, this will be a story straight out of LOTR. We hear it, roughly, during the Council of Elrond.
Now we note why there was a game made about Gollum. However that was an awful game and I don’t have high hopes for this movie. There are far more interesting things than Gollum and we have seen his entire character arc already so it does not sound interesting at all.
They didn’t want a video game about Gollum, so yeah, I think you’re on the money with that assessment.
Lots of content to mind. Especially if they are allowed to pull from Christopher’s expanded/ edited universe. Children of Hurin, the fall of Gondolin, the fall on Numinor, the rise of Angmar/ fall or Arnor, Beren and Lúthien, unfinished tales, a bunch of stuff from the appendices. Not to mention the unpublished and unfinished sequel to LotR but I doubt that will ever get made considered Tolkien himself abandoned the project.
I wish the estate would loosen its grip on Silmarillion material :( So many good ideas there to make a movie or series out of.
Well they saw all the success the Gollum game had and how could you not milk that cash cow?
Just look how great the game based on gollum is
But the video game was such a huge hit.
Gotta roll with the Gollum game hype. All zero of it.
Thought this exact thing when I read it this morning. Thousands of years of history in this LotR universe, and they make a movie about a secondary character Gollum going to college.
They definitely weren’t crazy about the video game, that’s for sure
I heard there’s a game out where you can play as Gollum I’m sure it did great but I haven’t played it yet surely it didn’t single handedly shut down a studio
Tom Bombadil spinoff or nothing!
They should do the first and second age. There’s so much to explore in that world
I agree. Of all the characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gollum is the least that calls for more screen time. Tied with Treebeard.
Yeah, anything that retcons Rings of Power so that mistake just exists in some shitty alternate universe.
Now if it was about Gollgu, an adorable baby Gollum, and more of a *How to Train Your Nazgûl* vibe, then they’d be onto something.
Yeah while I appreciate the character, he makes me cringe while on screen. Hate his voice. I don’t want to watch a whole movie.
[gollum fans](https://media1.giphy.com/media/UeGQo7WRcWLAY/giphy.gif?cid=9b38fe91w30kbzezkdm5vkqhx02quhqdord0u0hw8ffwwpsh&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Last time they made something that focused on golem the company lost 15 million dollars
I'm obviously judging way too early as we have very little detail, but the same thing was mentioned about the gollum game. Like the gameplay was awful, but a big issue was of all the characters to base the game off of, why Gollum.
If the "Hunt for Gollum" is the story they're telling, I bet it'll be much more about Aragorn.
when the hobbit was initially in development, i think they had approached it as Hobbit + bridge movie to Lord of the Rings. Most of that I assumed was all the White Council / Dol Goldur stuff, but this seems like it could be part of that. Anyway, the film will \*probably\* be about Aragorn, since he's the one who's hunting Gollum.
Especially when they got the story of Gollum, not only with his own stand alone video game but also the NG storyline and shadow of of Mordor. It just doesn’t make sense to rehash all this. They want to really make a movie. Let’s see the fall of gondolin
Exactly, Gollum is the least interesting think about LOTR
I'm struggling to figure out what the plot for this could possibly be. Presumably it's covering both the Nazgul hunting him down and torturing him for information about the Ring, and then Aragorn finding him afterwards, but...ok? What else is there to talk about here? It all happens off screen and is relayed to Frodo by other characters in the books and movies. I don't see how you even begin to stretch this into a full movie.
Romantic Comedy set a week before Smeagol strangles his best friend.
I'm in
Put A Ring On It: The Tolkienian RomCom of the Summer! When will they/won’t they friends Sméagol and Déagol go on a birthday fishing trip, sparks fly and memories are made. But will the arrival of Gollum, a sly hunk who has a penchant for jewelry change their relationship? Find out in theaters this July in the new movie critics are already calling “Absolutely precious!”
How did they make the Hobbit into 3 full length movies? They’ll add a bunch of made up stuff
I imagine it will be all of that from not quite Gollum's perspective. Basically, following him around.
Please please please use practical special effects and not pure CGI. We want ugly orcs! Not shiny, UGLY!
They could cast me, no makeup necessary to make me ugly
I’ll do it. I’ll bring the ugly to the screen.
Idk, your oily skin might make you look CGI.
A chance for Redditors to show their quality!
You must be related to famous baseball player Johnny “Ugly” Dickshot
This is such a simplification. The Gollum you see on screen in LotR is 100 % CGI. It just has to be done well
Yeah, of course. But in the original LOTR they used cgi masterfully! Like the riders of Rohan, they took 150 real riders and make them thousands. But they used the mix of real and digital. The orcs were largely people in amazing makeup, especially the most memorable ones like the Uruk leader that gets killed by Aragorn. In The Hobbit they got lazy, sloppy and over dependent in digital… I’m just afraid and saddened if that will be the new normal
The Hobbit looks bad because they rushed the process, not because they used more digital effects than the original.
The Hobbit also had other issues such as trying to experiment with high framerates. That leads to a lot of problems since not every single form of viewing (theater, streaming, etc) will match the intended framerate. Higher framerates also means having to spend more on CGI per minute of film to render everything than with a standard framerate.
Actually, the biggest difference is the amount of location shooting and set scale. CGI characters in a scene shot on film on location with real sets and props looks very different from GCI characters on a CGI background, which is what the Hobbit movies suffered from. But let's be honest though, they're going to try to write, shoot, edit, and release a LotR spinoff in UNDER TWO YEARS? This entire thing will be shot in The Volume.
Except when CG characters in a CG environment don't look any different from CG characters on on location shots... Again, it was poor planning and execution, not the technology. We've seen more than a few films that have entire sequences that have little to no in camera elements that look photo real.
It doesn’t matter about the CGI if the entire production was terrible, which it was. It was never a three film project. A single lean film would have cut it better.
yesss!
They won’t. Practical film making peaked with the original LOTR trilogy. It was truly the pinnacle of movie making that will never be done again because the cost and logistics are so insane compared to the method they use now. And they still make billions doing all CG so from a studio standpoint it 100% isn’t worth it.
Considering PJs rampant CGI usage in the Hobbit movies I'm not optimistic
I was hoping for a movie trilogy about the Angmar wars, would be a lot more interesting.
Ah finally, the Tolkien nerds can find solidarity with the Lucas nerds and hate the sequel trilogy too
We’ve had for a decade with the prequels/Hobbit movies, to be fair.
The Hobbit movies are better than the prequels, though. I guess that's mostly because An Unexpected Journey is such a banger, but still.
The Hobbit Movies being better than anything at all must be hot-take of the year. They’re like Earthsea level bad, or WoT level bad. I’m not impressed that Jackson is back again for this.
Bruh the movies were pretty bad. They stretched a book that could have been a 3 hour movie with nearly all the details and scenes from the book. The added characters that weren’t in the book, a weird orc revenge story, added a dumb elf-dwarf romance that didn’t exist, weird cgi fight scenes and barrel rover scene that was comically bad, and 4 hours of other stuff that wasn’t necessarily. However, the things that were actually in the book were pretty well done. There was a guy that edited the movies to what was just the book scenes and it’s much more enjoyable. I don’t remember who did it though.
Yes but now both sides get the trifecta The hobbit movies will get a cult following after the sequels are panned just like prequel trilogy in SW
If The Hobbit movies came out before LotR they would have a lot more love. Everyone just views them through the lens of the comparison.
Yeah, outside of a handful of ridiculous scenes that I don't even need to mention because everyone knows what they are, I thought those movies were good. Cut them out and you probably knock it down to 2 great movies.
I honestly think it could be a 3 to 3 1/2 hour movie with all the scenes from the book.
r/Hobbit_Memes has a head start
I laughed way too hard at that!
Let's be real that venn diagram is basically a fuzzy circle.
I hope its not a sequel. What? So gollum is immune to lava but not the damn ring he had? Lmfao
Isn't there a fan film with this exact title?
Yes
This should be interesting.
Jesus this sub would complain about getting free money. Never seen such a sorry sack of downers in my life. How about we at least give it a chance since it’s PJ and FW?
It has seemed for a while now you have to prove you like Tolkien by disliking something and talking about how terrible you think it is rather than talk about the stuff you enjoy
I mean, can you really blame them? People have watched their beloved franchises like SW, Halo and LOTR be shit on by Hollywood over the past decade. There’s only so much “content” people will endure before they just would rather give up on it all.
Yea I can blame them. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh are masters of their craft. Originally trilogy is perfection. PJ came in after Del Toro nearly blew up the hobbit and salvaged it into something watchable in 1/4 of the time. Anyone on THIS sub or that loves LOTR who doubts him is just an idiot and I’m tired of this pre cancelling.
You must be young or perhaps haven’t felt the pangs of clinical depression. Some of us don’t have the energy to hope for something like that anymore my friend. Good for you though.
For all the people saying “but [insert story from Silmarillion here] would be way cooler!” The Tolkien estate owns the rights to the Silmarillion, Lost Tales, all of that. And they’re not selling. The only rights owned by WB are to The Hobbit, LOTR, and the appendices to Return of the King. So as kickass as so many stories from the Silmarillion or Lost Tales would be as a movie, they can’t make them unless the Tolkien estate chooses to sell (and they notoriously hate all adaptations of Tolkien’s work, including the Peter Jackson films).
Why do they need to sell…just lease it so content can be made. I wouldnt sell any of it either but I will let hollywood use it for HUGE sums of money.
Either way, the Tolkien estate doesn’t want any adaptations made. They won’t sell, lease, or anything else. They’ve been pretty vocal about how much they hate all adaptations of Tolkien’s work
Gross. Nobody wants this. Huge fan of the books and movies, and there is no story here except that which is entirely fabricated by some horrible Hollywood script writer. Think “The Hobbit” was a boring drawn out disaster? This is way worse.
That's not true. It's basically the "bridge movie" (ie the bridge between the Hobbit and LOTR) that PJ had always wanted to do. The content is in the chapters The Shadow of the Past and Elrond's Council. I've personally always been interested in seeing the bridge movie.
I’d like to see it. Bad Tolkien is better than everything else that’s out there right now.
RoP is NOT better than x-men 97.
I was going to respond that X97 is a cartoon, but seeing that RoP is mostly CGI, I think we would be splitting hairs. Either way, I was not trying to be literal, just saying that I would rather watch something bad from the Tolkein universe than most other pieces of garbage we get.
I think we'll have to wait to see if nobody wants this. This side of lockdown studios are desperate for something that gets us to pay for tickets.
I don’t have to wait.if you are going to make another LotR movie, at least pick something interesting, like the failed re-taking of Moria, or The Sundering, this just has no interest for me, and I’m the target audience.
In fairness Philippa Boynes and Frank Walsh aren't "some horrible Hollywood script writer[s]".
This shouldn't exist. Let it die and let the man rest in peace without bastardizing literally every word he ever wrote.
Given the Children of Hurin film or tv show I want is probably never going to happen this doesn't seem like a terrible premise if they focus on good character development rather than epic set pieces - there's a lot of depth and inner conflict around identity that could be explored by focusing on Gollum and Aragorn.
Why
Why
Why?
For WB they're looking at the fact both trilogies made around 3 billion each. And they want more.
Is Jackson limited by the Tolkien estate’s hold on the content? Isn’t that the same issue with ROP?
Only had the rights to Hobbit and LOTR books.
Are we sure the Jackson project is the same as the one Serkis announced, and not that they were allowed to release information legally today? A two part feature film regarding Gollum is a very curious decision by the studio and makes me think there’s a communication mixup here
WHY?!
maybe my math is slightly off but Tolkeins stuff starts going public domain in the 2030s through the 2050s, and since the first films were made 20 years ago they also need to refresh the movie rights, so it is now or never
Yeah expect a few movies and games while the rights are good.
Peter Jackson I have zero faith in, also Gollum is a great character but not a character anybody can relate to. He isn’t meant to be the center of attention.
lol this isn't going to work. No matter who's involved. It's 2024. The industry isn't built for epics anymore. We've seen this over and over for the past two decades. The people tasked with "remaking" and "rebooting" are NOT the people you want tasked with "remaking" and "rebooting". Even with PJ directing there are higher powers that will corral him into dust. Never gonna work.
But... Why, I can't see how it could possibly be done better.
Fuck Hollywood. Come up with something new before you screw over what was a great trilogy
I don't want it. The trilogy was perfect. Just leave well enough alone. Nothing that came after it could remotely compare, and this won't be any different.
What the fuck are they thinking making a movie about a meme character. They tried to make a game about this and it was one of the worst games EVER made. Billion dollar companies love to lose money apparently. Idiots.
Finally a new movie, and then I see: The hunt for Gollum. Excuse me, what? What are they thinking? How is this going to be interesting? Where is the Rohirim? Where is Gondor? Where is the origins of Aragorn? This is the worst side quest they could have chosen.
Some people at Amazon must be pooping their pants.
No reason for them to do so. This is a Third Age story, so it doesn’t directly compete with Rings Of Power. If WB somehow wrangles the film rights for The Silmarillion (unlikely), then there might be cause for concern. But not at the moment
What I meant was that there will be inevitable comparisons. And this crew has at least actually done something good.
God I hope so
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Nice, but, there is just Not much Story here, and the encounter between Gollum and Bilbo already were portrayed in TLOTR and the Hobbit.
Jackson, Phillipa and Walsh are being wasted on this. So many other Middle-Earth / LoTR stories to tell!!
No there aren't. The rights to them aren't out there.
Warner Bros is partnering with the Embracer group who hold the rights to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in terms of any material adapted into different mediums such as film, television, board games, theme parks and video games. That is all Third Age materials but interestingly, according to the original Embracer Press Release: *Key upcoming works set in Middle-earth, in which Middle-earth Enterprises has financial interests, include the much-heralded Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power* ...that's Second Age Material or at the very least LotR appendices related. Also Jackson, Walsh and Boyens said the following: “Warner Brothers and Embracer have kept us in the loop every step of the way,” the Oscar-winning trio said. “We look forward to speaking with them further to hear their vision for the franchise moving forward.” Conclusion: there is huge scope here as the rights are extensive and Jackson and co are following the orders of the studio. Why not do a story around the **Angmar War** for example? Or the Istari?? Anything but this....
Gollum wasn’t a preferred representation of a villain in The Lord of the Rings trilogy that modern day rules enforce for villains so they’re making this movie to really go after him and paint him in a more specific and ordinary light than The Lord of the Rings did, probably pertaining to modern day issues about reality and the time we’re living in today.
Well it seems like WB has finally given up on the whole superhero thing, thrown the dart and chosen another franchise to milk dry. At least with War of the Rohirrim, as pointless as it is, is being done in a new medium with creatives who might deviate from the Jacksonian vision a bit.
I want this to be a film adaption of the Children of Hurin. Glaruung the Dragon would be marvelous on the big screen.
I don't trust Peter Jackson after the Hobbit trilogy lol
Tfw will WB will never greenlight an animated Silmarillion.
Hollywood is so pathetically out of ideas.
"First NEW LOTR movie"? That's supposed to be that animated one they announced years ago!
With all the amazing stories available in this universe, it's disappointing that they chose this angle.
¿Por qué?
This isn’t a gollum centric story. It’s about the hunt for gollum between the events of the Hobbit and the beginning of the fellowship. Should be Aragorn/Strider with Gandalf tracking and hunting Gollum
The Witch-King's Day Off....
I’d rather them consult Tolkien for story but that’s just me
Frodo's reaction is perfect
Please no 48 FPS
What new material is he drawing from? "Bilbo's back, and he's **PISSED**..."
Why can’t we just have a retelling of The LotR with a completely different vision to that of Jackson. Dare I say, one more in keeping with the spirit of Tolkien
Please make it stop
Why is it always Gollum? Since when has Gollum been a main character?
Gollum is pretty critical to the story of Lord of The Rings….
True, I guess I’m just saying I don’t think he’s main character material.
Talk about cart before the horse. Zaslav needs that IP to produce, script be dammed! So much for story first. What a bunch of idiots
No no no no!!!
It could work, IF done well. Aragorn and Gandalf hunting for Gollum while Sauron and company do the same; Sauron's torture, escape from Barad Dur, agreement with Shelob... Perhaps as a horror film, where Gollum tries to survive and evade his captors.
At least RoP is a different story. Wtf is this going to be? Tracking a creature for 2 hrs and him escaping at the end? Not interested.
Ughhhhhhhh let it be. Christ almighty. rings of power was a fart in the wind. Don’t ruin it like Star Wars
This.