A few months after the theatrical release of the animated film The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim, Warner Bros. Discovery has just announced the news that fans were no longer waiting for: the release date of the next live-action film produced by Peter Jackson. We tell you everything!
The Lord of the Rings: Finally a release date for the next film
To get out of the financial rut, Warner Bros. Discovery has repeatedly announced its desire to focus on its most profitable licenses: Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, DC Comics and The Lord of the Rings. While Amazon Prime Video is busy working on the third season of its series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, the Hollywood major intends to recall the powerful legacy of Peter Jackson's cult trilogy that revived public interest in fantasy in the early 2000s. In 2024, Warner announced with great fanfare the start of two live-action The Lord of the Rings films produced by Peter Jackson, the first of which, directed by British director Andy Serkis, would be titled The Hunt for Gollum.
First announced for 2026, the film had been postponed to an unknown date. While the resounding box office failure of Kenji Kamiyama's animated film The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim may have discouraged some fans from returning to Middle-earth, let's not forget that it was a low-cost film produced quickly so as not to lose the license rights, in accordance with the deal signed with Professor Tolkien's rights holders. Moreover, despite some obvious flaws (particularly concerning the animation and certain problems with the continuity of the saga), the author of these lines confesses to having a certain sympathy for this animated feature film. feature film - which will have benefited from a longer development period - seems more reassuring. Indeed, if Andy Serkis directed the infamous Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the actor knows the character intimately since he played him in both Peter Jackson trilogies; in addition, he served as director of the second filming unit on the entire Hobbit trilogy. To see the result of this new foray of Peter Jackson's teams into Middle-earth, we will have to wait until December 17, 2027. (No French release has been announced, but considering Warner Bros.' habits, we can probably expect a release date for December 15, 2027.)
Beyond the announcement of the release date of The Hunt for Gollum, this news seems to give us some food for thought regarding Warner Bros.' strategy. While it seems clear that the legendary Hollywood major wants to rely on the legacy of Peter Jackson's 17-Oscar-winning trilogy - a recent article by Anne Besson in the specialist magazine Chimères reminded us that Lord of the Rings fans consider Peter Jackson the saga's "second creator", explaining their leniency regarding certain adaptation choices - Warner Bros. Discovery has decided to reuse the holiday season slot. It should be remembered that The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim was released in theaters on December 11, 2024.
The December 2027 slot also seems like a fairly logical idea; Aside from Frozen 3, which will be released in November of the same year, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum has no major direct competition. James Cameron's fifth Avatar installment was initially announced for December 2027, before being delayed to 2031 (the fourth is scheduled for 2029), leaving the field open for Gollum. It remains to be seen what other films will be announced for December 2027, and whether they will have an influence on the release of the new Lord of the Rings film.
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