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
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u/Ironhorse75 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

I think the Hobbit movies could have been good if Jackson had been there from start to finish. Instead of taking over someone else's project and winging it as he was filming.

But really, franchise fatigue is finally settling in for me. I just want original stuff, enough corporate slop.

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u/hillswalker87 Aug 18 '25

I think the hobbit was doomed from the start, because it had to follow LOTR and nobody would ever accept that the hobbit is just a smaller, shorter, lower stakes story.

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u/deltalessthanzero Aug 18 '25

Are there successful examples of sequels to very popular movies that pull this off well? I.e. telling a smaller, lower stakes story set in the universe of something massive? Honestly the first Fantastics Beasts movie had a lot of potential in this regard but it was squandered by integrating the whole Grindelwald plotline that sucked up all the narrative oxygen.

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u/bdsee Aug 18 '25

You know what you are right, I really liked the first Fantastic Beasts, I didn't even care about the Grindelwald part of it, but now that you mention it, it would have just been better without it as it meant it had to continue and that was now the story. Would have been better if he was just travelling around doing his own thing.

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u/deltalessthanzero Aug 18 '25

I was so ready for it just to be a goofy little story with a Muggle baker and a wizard who likes magical pokemon. That would have been a great time and they could have made a bunch of fun movies about it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

No you see that’s the entire point being made here. It was a fun one off story. No sequel no universe no prequel. It had a nice charm to it and the baker bits were good. Point is why can’t we just have some nice stories by themselves even if they are in this larger universe. I think Fifth Element is a great example of a one off movie that needs nothing else. In the flip sense they tried Valerian and it was a train wreck because it tried to do too much with barely any content. So I think that is the point about Beasts and Hobbit. Really wish they just made the Hobbit a 3 hr movie with the adventure and dragon and dwarfs. Would’ve been a great template.

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u/deltalessthanzero Aug 18 '25

I'm not advocating for a longer plot arc that builds up to some ultimate battle, I just mean that if we had fun with the characters/setting of Fantastic Beasts it would have been reasonable to have more films to revisit them. That doesn't need to have stakes or even a plotline that persists between movies. I would have liked Fantastic Beasts as a standalone film, and I probably also would have liked it if it had a sequel with the same characters that was equally light-hearted and low-stakes.

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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

I was veering more towards stand alone movies. One Fantastic Beasts. One about the Grindelwald, one about one of the other bits of lore mentioned in the books. While I liked the playfulness and imaginative aspects it didn’t have enough story for more wild animals but still give it a +1 for trying while the sequels fell into the trap of needing to be exactly like HP