Warner Bros. has announced plans to release a new Lord of the Rings film in 2026. According to The Hollywood Reporter, CEO David Zaslav stated during a conference call about the company’s Q1 earnings that Warner Bros. is now in the early stages of script development for a new batch of films exploring “storylines yet to be told”. The first film within this batch has the working title Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Peter Jackson, who directed the original trilogy, will be producing the film alongside Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh and is expected to be “involved every step of the way”. The movie is set to hit cinemas in 2026.
The project is currently in the early stages of script development and is being worked on by writers Boyens and Walsh, in addition to Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou. Andy Serkis is expected to return to his iconic role as Gollum and will also be making his directorial debut. He will join executive producers Jonathan Cavendish and Ken Kamins at The Imaginarium.
Last year, Warner Bros. announced that they had made a deal to create multiple movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels. According to Variety, the films are being developed through WB label New Line Cinema and Freemode, a division of Embracer Group. Jackson, Walsh and Boyens said in a statement, “we are proud to be working with Warner Bros. on another epic adventure!”
The first film in Peter Jackson’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, was released in 2001. The movies starred Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler, and Ian McKellen, among others, and collectively grossed $3 billion worldwide. The franchise also made the transition to television with the release of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in 2022
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