New Lord of the Rings Movie Officially Brings Frodo Back to The Shire in First Images

3 weeks ago 19
 The Return of the King Image via New Line Cinema

Published Sep 23, 2026, 9:39 PM EDT

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

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Yesterday was Hobbit Day, and fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's work had plenty to celebrate on the momentous holiday. The Lord of the Rings is full of life more than ever at the moment, across television, the silver screen, and beyond. In less than two months, Prime Video's prequel series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, will return with the first four episodes of its third season on November 11, bringing war to Mordor once more and introducing Jamie Campbell Bower to Middle-earth as Celeborn. Former The Late Show host and Tolkien superfan Stephen Colbert is also preparing his own cinematic journey into Mordor in collaboration with Philippa Boyens and Peter McGee, covering the eighth chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring, Fog on the Barrow-downs. There's even a new Middle-earth-set game from Kingdom Come developers Warhorse Studios in early development.

However, most eyes are set on the horizon of December 17, 2027, when The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will ride into theaters. Production began in the franchise's picturesque longtime home of New Zealand back in July with director and star Andy Serkis seamlessly slipping back into the rasping tones of the titular wretched creature. Set between Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and original Lord of the Rings trilogy and into Fellowship of the Ring, it explores the perspective of Gollum, as Gandalf, played by a returning Ian McKellen, sends the ranger Strider, aka Aragorn, now embodied by Jamie Dornan, out in search of the creature to stop him before he can reveal the ring's location to Sauron's forces. A lot of buzz has surrounded the return of many of Jackson's original stars, and now, Warner Bros. is puilling back the curtain on the effort to bring Middle-earth back to life.

In accordance with Hobbit Day, the studio unveiled a collection of set photos from The Hunt for Gollum on its official TikTok page. Included among the set is a first look at Elijah Wood's return to The Shire as Frodo Baggins, though he's only shown from behind. That's probably intentional, given much of the cast will use de-aging technology to appear as they did in the original, but he does look accurate for what is shown of him. Otherwise, the rest of the images are a nostalgic look at the idyllic Shire, showing off the gorgeous, green-laden landscape and actors dressed once more for Middle-earth, while Serkis mans the camera.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood

Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.

💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)

👒Grand Line(One Piece)

🐺The Continent(The Witcher)

🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)

FIND YOUR WORLD →

01

What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.

ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.

AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.

AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.

AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.

ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.

AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.

ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.

AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…

Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.

Middle-earth

You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.

  • This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
  • You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
  • The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
  • You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.

The Grand Line

You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.

  • One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
  • You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
  • The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
  • You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.

The Continent

You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.

  • Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
  • You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
  • The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
  • You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.

Camp Half-Blood

You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.

  • Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
  • You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
  • The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
  • Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Who Else Is Heading to Middle-earth for 'The Hunt for Gollum'?

Wood, McKellen, and Serkis aren't the only returning faces in The Hunt for Gollum. In addition to the trio of Lord of the Rings trilogy stars, Lee Pace is also reprising his fan-favorite role as Thranduil the Elvenking from the Hobbit films. The series has also picked up several high-profile newcomers, including Kate Winslet as Marigol, Leo Woodall as the Dúnedain ranger Halvard, and Anya Taylor-Joy as the elf Seren. Jackson's collaborators Boyens and Fran Walsh both returned to help pen the screenplay, joining Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou.

The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum arrives in theaters on December 17. Check out the set images above.

the-lord-of-the-rings-the-hunt-for-gollum-poster.jpg

Release Date December 17, 2027

Writers Arty Papageorgiou, Phoebe Gittins, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, J.R.R. Tolkien

Franchise(s) The Lord of the Rings

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