Filming is underway on The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, with actor and director Andy Serkis confirming to Variety that filming began a little more than a week ago, with almost all of the same crew from the previous trilogy returning.
However, the cast will be completely changed. Serkis, Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and Lee Pace will reprise their roles from the previous film, while Anya Taylor-Joy, Kate Winslet, Leo Woodall and Jamie Dornan will also co-star.
When asked how Dornan was doing as Strider/Aragorn, he replied, “I have to say, Jamie is doing extremely well. He’s great.” Serkis was also asked whether the new film will use any kind of AI to achieve its goals. he says:
“We don’t have it at the moment, except for some de-aging. Some characters have a little bit of de-aging, and machine learning is part of the process.
If you think about it, in the original Lord of the Rings movies, Peter created MASSIVE, a program that allowed thousands of orcs to each have their own way of thinking. This is an incredible use of AI.
However, we are not creating AI shots in the film, all shots are created in a traditional manner. One of the things I really wanted to do with this movie was to bring back all of my great filmmaking skills, from miniatures to prosthetics, and fuse them together. Because that’s what I like. I like to combine different filmmaking techniques.
Also asked if Peter Jackson would make a cameo appearance, Serkis replied, “Well, we’ll have to wait and see on that.” Jackson is producing the film with regular writing/producing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Bowen.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum” is scheduled to be released in theaters on December 17, 2027.
