Everything we learn about the new Lord of the Rings midquel, The Hunt for Gollum, we’re learning against our will. The upcoming film felt about as superfluous as one could get when its development was first announced, and, for certain fans, each new update only reinforces that feeling. That Andy Serkis will direct and star in The Hunt for Gollum, reprising his role as the eponymous villain, is moderately interesting — but as the film is supposedly set between the events of The Hobbit films and The Fellowship of the Ring, it will inevitably trample all over the trilogy that has become so beloved to fans. The cast members who can return (like Ian McKellen and Elijah Wood) will, but the rest will have to be recast. Wood even seemed to confirm in a recent interview that Leo Woodall will be taking on the character of Aragorn, a necessary evil in every sense of the term.
Disappointments and Hobbit-ish complaining aside, it’s also kind of fun to watch the plot for this closely-guarded film begin to take shape. There’s so little material at hand to base this story on that any update also feels like a crucial clue. Nearly everything that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about Gollum’s past has already been adapted, save for some tantalizing background in Chapter 2 of The Fellowship of the Ring — “The Shadow of the Past.” It's in these pages that Gandalf explains the history of the Ring to Frodo and Gollum’s connection to it, and if you read those pages while taking a look at the casting updates, it’s almost like we can already figure out what’s going on with this movie. In fact, some of the casting choices could help reveal the direction that The Hunt for Gollum could take. At least at first.
