If your January needed a little Middle-earth madness, congratulations… It’s arrived in podcast form. Ailish Morrison (one of the most dedicated Lord of the Rings brains I know) popped back onto The Movie Dweeb Podcast and immediately we were in that very specific zone of: YOU LIKE LORD OF THE RINGS. LET’S DISCUSS IT.

The big headline: The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is currently set for December 17, 2027, with Andy Serkis directing and starring, and Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens producing. That’s already enough to send any Tolkien fan into a happy stress-sneeze.

But the real shouting into a pillow moment came from Ian McKellen himself. At a fan event, he teased that Gandalf would be involved, and also suggested Frodo might be part of it too, which obviously sets the internet on fire in 0.2 seconds. Ailish and I basically did the audio version of pointing at a corkboard covered in red string.

My big question, however, was how do you handle the timeline without making it feel like a “hello fellow youths” CGI experiment? We joked about the franchise’s past de-ageing swings… But also landed on the most plausible option: the roles could be smaller, strategic, and story-critical, like elegant little lore grenades.

And then, because it’s Ailish, we got into the real Middle-earth philosophy: if the vibe is right, fans will forgive a lot, but if it feels off, Tolkien TikTok will assemble faster than the Rohirrim.

The Lord of the Rings legacy still hits like a Balrog

The reason Hunt for Gollum chatter hits so hard is simple: Lord of the Rings isn’t just a trilogy; it’s a shared personality trait. The films didn’t just create iconic characters; they created an entire language of internet reactions. (You don’t ‘arrive late,’ you ‘arrive precisely when you mean to.’)

The original trilogy is also that rare modern franchise that’s both beloved and historically massive. The Return of the King famously won 11 Oscars, tying the all-time record; a level of sweep that still makes film nerds go misty-eyed in public. 

And the scale hasn’t exactly shrunk. Middle-earth is now in its expanded universe era: new films in development, Amazon’s series keeping the world active, and fans permanently living in a loop of “this could be amazing” and “please don’t mess up my childhood.” 

Ian McKellen as Magneto again… in Avengers: Doomsday

As if Gandalf possibly returning wasn’t enough for one timeline, Ian McKellen is also confirmed as part of the X-Men alumni showing up in Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday, currently set for December 18, 2026. 

If 2026/2027 continues like this, and it turns into the year Ian McKellen simply arrives in every franchise, I won’t complain. I will, however, require several lie-downs.

For more award-worthy awkwardness, afterlife dilemmas, and actor confessions, follow The Movie Dweeb on YouTube and TikTok.