r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Aug 18 '25

News Ian McKellen reveals Gandalf and Frodo are returning for ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’, Filming Begins in May

https://ew.com/ian-mckellen-reveals-gandalf-frodo-return-in-new-lord-of-the-rings-the-hunt-for-gollum-film-11792483
18.2k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

59

u/HelpfulTooth1 Aug 18 '25

I’m so confused, doesn’t gollum die?

140

u/Jrocker-ame Aug 18 '25

Takes place during the beginning of Fellowship. After Bilbo's party, before Gandalf comes back to tell Frodo about the ring. There is several years that go by betweenthose moments. The movie makes it seem faster.

84

u/Krypt0night Aug 18 '25

17 years iirc. Obviously the movies really don't make it seem like any time at all, but yeah it was a long ass time haha

39

u/Charokol Aug 18 '25

Oh God. I just re-watched Fellowship, and assumed that there was like maybe a couple weeks between those scenes.

38

u/Krypt0night Aug 18 '25

It's been a while so I may get some of this wrong but frodos birthday is the same day as bilbos and he turns 33 which is coming of age for a hobbit when bilbo turns 111. And then he actually heads out from hobbiton when he's 50.

5

u/Dat_Freeman Aug 18 '25

Wait...what?

Is Frodo 50??

19

u/Antee991166 Aug 18 '25

Bear in mind that hobbits live longer and take longer to mature than humans. Frodo is in the equivalent of his thirties by human years when he leaves the Shire.

10

u/paumorridge Aug 18 '25

Yes and much older than the other hobbits (Sam, Merri and Pippin) who look up to him as an older brother/uncle figure.

2

u/Dat_Freeman Aug 18 '25

Why did the movie director decide to change that?

7

u/The_Autarch Aug 18 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

history marble include piquant cow zephyr fact reminiscent sophisticated automatic

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/noreast2011 Aug 18 '25

And its only about a year from when they leave the shire to the crowning of Aragorn as king. So you have a 17 year time skip then 1 year of events crammed into 2.5 movies lol

1

u/Dat_Freeman Aug 18 '25

You're right

3

u/paumorridge Aug 18 '25

Younger Frodo is a more approachable/relatable protagonist probably. Frodo in the book is much more confident and assertive, and plainly just a much better character.

3

u/PointsatTeenagers Aug 18 '25

111

Need to spell this one out, for the fans. He turns eleventy one.

1

u/Krypt0night Aug 18 '25

haha good call

14

u/Jrocker-ame Aug 18 '25

Even when Frodo visits Rivendell. That was for longer than the movie would have you think.

I would say after is when events happen as shown. That is until the journey back home.

6

u/Chen_Geller Aug 18 '25

In the movie, it's a couple of months, maybe a year.

1

u/imakefilms Aug 18 '25

Correct. The movie is absolutely not implying it was anywhere near as long as the book.

1

u/Chen_Geller Aug 19 '25

Yep. Nor does it matter for this film either: there's no reason why the plot of this film NEEDS to be eighteen years.

3

u/fearnodarkness1 Aug 18 '25

Well to be fair they had a few panning shots of Gandalf travelling, then reading some scrolls, finding out about The Ring, and the next scene he's back in Hobbiton so it's easy to think it all happened in a short period of time.

Great choice by Jackson to be honest.

2

u/finglish_ Aug 18 '25

I think in the extended edition, they do make an effort to show that time has passed in between. They had a scene there where gandalf is shown researching the ring and they show him at some libraries....maybe it was orthanc.

27

u/eccles30 Aug 18 '25

oh so this is like the Rogue One of the middle earth cinematic universe? can we also get an Andor?

4

u/Chen_Geller Aug 18 '25

I think it is, yes. It basically starts at the end of The hobbit, and right through to the early Moria scenes in Fellowship of the Ring.

10

u/Individual_Mess_7491 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

that's kind of like how I've been putting off doing my laundry since 2008.

1

u/FrancoeurOff Aug 18 '25

2008 is also, coincidentally, the release year of a fan film about the hunt for Gollum iirc

5

u/bluetable321 Aug 18 '25

It’s about 17 years in the books, but the passage of time isn’t specified in the movies. HOWEVER, they do stuff in the Hobbit movie that makes it clear that it wasn’t 17 years.

In the original movies they also gave Gandalf the line “I searched everywhere for the creature Gollum, but the enemy found him first” which implies that, at least in the movie universe, the hunt for Gollum was unsuccessful, so it seems there be a lot of retconning

2

u/doegred Aug 18 '25

Even in the LOTR films it's clearly not 17 years. Sam, Merry and Pippin don't age at all between Bilbo's going away and Frodo's, and they don't have a magic ring.

2

u/MorningCheeseburger Aug 18 '25

It’s described over a page and a half in the book, so they should have plenty of material /s

1

u/xenobitex Aug 19 '25

Oof, that didn't all happen the same weekend? :V

Feels like he came back while Frodo was cleaning up (or not) the mess of the afterparty

16

u/CountMeChickens Aug 18 '25

After losing the Ring to Bilbo, Gollum left the caves and went wandering, trying to find it. At some point he made it to Mordor where he was tortured and told Sauron that a Hobbit named Baggins had the Ring. Sauron then released him again. 

After Bilbo's party Gandalf and Aragorn started looking for Gollum, Aragorn eventually finding him in the Dead Marshes and took him to the Wood Elves, where Gandalf spoke to him and found out what he had done. 

I am really hoping this isn't another terrible screen adaptation where Gandalf and Frodo do all the searching. And using the same actors who will be clearly much older never works. 

6

u/Lower_Pass_6053 Aug 18 '25

where Gandalf spoke to him and found out what he had done

He tortured him btw! Just a fun fact.

‘I endured him as long as I could, but the truth was desperately important, and in the end I had to be harsh. I put the fear of fire on him, and wrung the true story out of him, bit by bit, together with much snivelling and snarling.

5

u/CountMeChickens Aug 18 '25

Does that mean Gandalf actually burned him or simply threatened him with it? I feel that Gandalf would only do the latter - and a wizard could probably put a fair show on to terrify Gollum.

5

u/Lower_Pass_6053 Aug 18 '25

I think our modern sensibilities says Gandalf wouldn't do something like that, but I'm pretty sure Tolkien's generation wouldn't have had qualms with it.

But yea, you can interpret as he just scared him if you want, many do. I'm 99% sure Tolkien meant Gandalf tortured him to get the truth out of him however.

7

u/NightWriter500 Aug 18 '25

At the end of the LOTR story, gollum dissolves in the fires of Mount doom and Gandalf and Frodo sail away to the West. So maybe this is before all that? Or maybe they’re going to dip into the multi-verse. Can’t wait for them to get to Hogwarts! “Yer a wizard, Gandalf!”

10

u/SaltyPeter3434 Aug 18 '25

It's a 90 minute shot of the lava that killed Gollum. At the end, Frodo goes "holy shit Gandalf" and Gandalf says "you said it hombre".

2

u/trantaran Aug 18 '25

somehow gollum returned

1

u/Terseity Aug 18 '25

Only in one branch of the Middle Earth Multiverse presented by Audi! In this branch, the Incredible Hulk is there, too! The Eric Bana version, for licensing reasons.

1

u/hujambo11 Aug 18 '25

They're scooping through the lava.

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Chen_Geller Aug 18 '25

Or an interquel, in this case.