Chen G.
Gondor
Thu, 4:15pm
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The Bridge Film, The Hobbit and The Hunt for Gollum
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I wrote about the bridge film in extenso elsewhere but I wanted to try and put my finger on what was ACTUALLY going to be in it, what survived into The Hobbit, and what of it might end up in The Hunt for Gollum.
The bridge film concept was not a new one: it's possible Peter Jackson had been contemplating adapting some of the scenes, certainly around Aragorn and Gandalf looking for Gollum, as early as mid-1997. He certainly talked about in December 1998:
we would write and shoot the Tom Bombadil stuff, or scenes involving Gandalf and Aragorn hunting Gollum, and his capture by Orcs ... and any number of other bits of business that we can't fit [into the initial release]
The idea of doing a film dedicated (more or less, as we'll soon see) to such interstitial material seems to have materialized sometime between late 2001 and mid 2002. In late 2006, Jackson remembered that "several years ago", he and executive producer Mark Ordesky were talking about "not just The Hobbit but a second “LOTR prequel”, covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR." This was definitely before 2003, when Jackson was already discussing it openly with the press. In fact, they're probably the same conversations that Howard Shore remembers having had with Jackson during post-production for The Two Towers..
It is clear that the Hunt for Gollum still loomed large for the content of this "bridge" film. In another interview from 2006, Jackson literally said it may well involve "Gollum's sneaking into Mordor and Aragorn protecting The Shire. That's what we'd do."
But it seems the idea was already to incorporate at least the tail-end of The Hobbit into this bridge film, so that both films would have a strong foundation in Tolkien's books. After Guillermo del Toro joined in early 2008, he said they put together "a good template for what we’re tracking in the two movies", adding elsewhere that “I think Smaug dies in the first movie. So draw your own conclusions.” Elsewhere, he said he would start to "mimic" and crossfade into Peter's style in the second half of the second movie.
From this, we can loosely infer that the idea was to cover The Hobbit up through Smaug's death in the first film. The first half of the second film would cover the remainder of The Hobbit proper - strikingly similar to the eventual The Battle of the Five Armies - and then crossfade into the bridging material. All throughout, it's clear the story of Aragorn and Gollum remained the bulk of this bridging material. Says del Toro:
Q. Will Gollum play a role in the second film? If not, any plans to find a different role for Andy Serkis? Because, and I think most will agree with me, everything is better with more Serkis.
Guillermo del Toro: Yes! As all of you know, Gollum has a rather fascinating arch to go through and his alliance to Shelob or his period of imprisonment in Thranduil's, etc but it is early still- so early in fact that to reveal more would tie our hands and be counterproductive.
Elsewhere in this interview, Peter adds that they are "not imagining a film that literally covers 60 years, like a bio-pic or documentary. We would figure out what happens during that 60 years, and choose one short section of time to drop in and dramatise for the screen." This is strikingly similar to the approach they seem to be pursuing with The Hunt for Gollum.
The significance of this storyline to the "bridge" film is further reinforced by Philippa Boyens in two, much later interviews. First, in late 2013 Boyens said
"There’s enough story there to make a bridge movie, you know, there’s 60 years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and a lot of things happened. When we started structuring this trilogy we honestly thought about telling some of that. How Bilbo becomes the uncle of Frodo and take care of him. The story of Gollum… Can you have too much of Andy Serkis playing Gollum?"
Even more prescient is her discussion with Peter on the director's commentary for The Battle of the Five Armies, recorded in 2015:
Boyens: Aragorn really is one who tracks Gollum and ends up...and finds him eventually in the Dead Marshes, and he's taken to the Elves. And he's taken to the Elves, and because of the kindness of the Elves - and Legolas is one of his keepers... in Mirkwood, and through their kindness he actually manages to escape. Or has he escaped? Or was he let loose?
Jackson: so that's like a seventh Tolkien movie you've just heard [Boyens: 'Yeah, good luck, Pete'] No. It's a film that we'll never make but you just heard a little imaginative version of it from Philippa Boyens.
Boyens: 'The Hunting of Gollum Through The Wild' [Peter: 'The Hunting of Gollum'] and a few other things which are really interesting: Saruman's search for the Ring is really interesting, as well.
Peter: All part of a fictitious film 3.5."
Notice that, back in 2008, this was not just a thought experiment: both films were officially announced as having entered active development, and had tentative release dates, budget caps, and even a rudimentary cast and crew attached. It's only partially coincidence that the approaches made to those returning cast members at the time - McKellen, Serkis - were preicsely to those actors who would be required for both films. What's more, many of the same people - Serkis and McKellen but also Alan Lee, John Howe, Gino Acevedo, Sir Richard Taylor and others - are already onboard The Hunt for Gollum.
Nevertheless, by the time Boyens made the two comments above, the idea had been put to one side (although it obviously lingered in their minds). It is generally held that this happened just as del Toro came to New Zealand to start writing a story treatment in November 2008, but this is not quite true.
The chronology is not helped by the fact that Jackson and del Toro gradually moved away from the terminology of "BRIDGE" movie because they preferred to think of them as five completely undifferentiated entries in a single series. In keeping with this, and as we've seen, the distinction between "two Hobbit films" and "one Hobbit film and one bridge film" is made a little more abstract once one realizes that the "bridge" film was always going to include at least part of The Hobbit.
Indeed, what seems to have happened, rather, is that beginning in late 2008 the contents of the bridge film were gradually getting edged out. As Philippa and Peter recall in the director's commentary to The Desolation of Smaug, when they first started writing they tried to bring the first film right up to the opening of the Hidden Door. "It had an enormously long first film and a relatively normal-length second film." So already we've offloaded more content into the second film, and yet it's now a "normal-length" film.
But the bridge material kept clinging to the project, and until very late, at that. As it started getting really threadbare, it seems there were also discussions of offloading it to a third and then to a fourth film, but neither of these options ended up materializing until now. Viggo Mortensen remembered getting a call in 2008, but he must be misremembering since in 2009 he said "People ask me about it a lot, and I say, obviously, 'Nobody’s come to me,' but I won’t be surprised if they do, if I’m right for it in their eyes. Obviously, as an actor who originated on film that role, I’d rather finish the job." Again, Philippa, talking in 2013, elaborates that "we thought about seeing if he wanted to do something, but it would have only been a cameo."
This was obviously said at a point where there was no longer room to depict the Hunt in any depth. However, an availability call to Mortensen seems to have indeed happened circa 2010. They may have still been deliberating on calling him up for a cameo for the 2013 pickups, when Boyens eventually wrote the scene invoking Aragorn. Again, in the director's commentary she says the scene emerged out of the fact that they "ALWAYS wished we could have had Aragorn in these films. Dearly, dearly wanted to, you know, to have Viggo in these films. We did try!"
Obviously, this material is the bulk of the new film, The Hunt for Gollum. That this was an outgrowth of their previous ideas has been clarified by Boyens in 2024:
Q. was there ever like a project that almost happened, that you were like "Ah, we're getting close" and then "no." And then "almost"...like, whenever it false-starts things that you kind of really wanted to see fulfilled and hope maybe one day still?
Boyens: Yes, and actually there's a lot of that in The Hunt for Gollum, I have to say, that's coming up.
In more recent interviews, too, both Boyens and Andy Serkis had started emphasizing the "bridging" function of this film: where originally te official line was that the film is wholly contemporaneous to The Fellowship of the Ring, now it is usually described as happening between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. So much for the Aragorn and Gollum material, but what about other storylines? I'll list them in order.
Frodo and his parents
We've seen they considered covering the subject of Frodo's parents and him becoming adopted by Bilbo. This is another example of concepts from the bridge film "era" - it would have probably figured in both entries - enduring much later than people assume, because Ryan Gage, although he originally auditioned for Alfrid, was cast as Drogo Baggins. Indeed, there had been casting calls for both Drogo and for Primula Brandybuck who was said to be " "Prone to letting words and thoughts tumble out of her mouth without pause." There had even been an actresses rumoured to orbit the role: Caroline Grace-Cassidy.
The role of Primula was also partially concieved as part of adding female characters to the piece. In the appendices, Boyens reveals that "We did look at where the opportunities lay for creating a good, strong female character that could have her own story, and we looked at a few interesting places where that could happen: could she be a Hobbit?" In the director's commentary for An Unexpected Journey, she remarked on the brief appearance of Belladona Took that "it was nice to have a female Hobbit character."
Presumably, Drogo and Primula would engage in dialogue scenes with Bilbo during the early Shire scenes: I can only assume the part of Worrywort was concieved for this more extended reintroduction to Hobbiton, as was surely the Frodo cameo that ended up enduring. In The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - The Official Movie Guide , Brian Sibley reveals that the scene of Drogo and Primula death was at one point going to be included in the prologue of the film. So Bilbo would explain what happened to them and Frodo - the finished prologue is constructed entirely as an address to the younger Hobbit - and their scenes with Bilbo would unfold against that knowledge.
As mentioned, the idea died out quite late: Gage's recasting wasn't announced until May, and one would be excused for thinking they kept it under wraps for a while until they could lump it into a bigger casting announcement. But there exists footage of the "wall" featuring the cast, in which Ryan is still credited as "Drogo Baggins" while Dean O'Gorman, who only joined in late April, already appears in costume as Fili. It might be that they were negligent in updating the wall, but I think not.
As it is, the Frodo cameo (shot towards the end of the year, so just in time to do a quick rewrite on the Shire scenes) and the scenes with Worrywort are the only remnants of this storyline. It's highly unlikely any of this would figure into The Hunt for Gollum (although the fact that Frodo has a small role in the film makes one wonder) but it's noteworthy that they were finally able to leverage a substantial female Hobbit character into the film, in the guise of Smeagol's fabled grandmother and matriarch.
More material in other storylines: The Dol Guldur storyline
It's a common misconception that the Dol Guldur material is a remnant of the bridge film. The idea was always to weave that through both films. For example,
this quote from Peter Jackson:
“There was talk about doing ‘The Hobbit’ as one movie and making a ‘Hobbit,’ and ‘Lord of the Rings,’ bridge movie. We didn’t really know ourselves but as we worked through the story line we thought ‘Well obviously we could squeeze ‘The Hobbit’ into one movie, but in a three hour movie you would be amazed at how much of the story you would have to lose.”
“The book, well the book is what the book is and we just worked through a process and included all the events that we would like to see in the film, plus the fact that we wanted to embellish a few things and put a little extra narrative that includes Gandalf and what he was doing with the Necromancer and various side stories that are happening. So we decided really that the two movies we are doing would actually be ‘The Hobbit.’"
As we've seen, the move wasn't quite so binary, but other quotes from del Toro put this particular issue quite beyond contention. For example,
his allusion to "ancillary stuff" in this interview:
You don’t have to try to contain the HOBBIT book in one movie, which I think would be a disservice. People tend to think, “why two movies,” and you go back and take notes of the book. The book you read, is not the book that [you think it is]. The book is such an effortless read and it seems like it goes like a breeze, but there are so many events in THE HOBBIT. Especially if you’re taking into account, ancillary stuff, there’s so much there. It really is barely containable into two movies.
That said, obviously this material would have stretched across BOTH films and while it eventually ended-up playing across THREE, it did get pared down to the bare essentials. Originally, there was a lot more material concieved or even shot: scenes of Gandalf finding a Palantir (still glimpsed in the finished film) where he would see Smaug leading Sauron's armies into battle, scenes of Beorn being incarcerated in the fortress and freed by Radagast (this sets-up his appearance in the battle), and Gandalf pursuing the Necromancer into either Rhun or the Withered Heath, where he gets diverted when he sees a second Orc army: this was replaced by Legolas and Tauriel's sojourn to Gundabad. There had also been an attempt to include a young Gothmog in the Orc army. They apparently designed him but it went no further. Even so, it's something to keep in mind for The Hunt for Gollum, which we already know will include Orcs.
More material in other storylines: The Woodland Realm
This is a curious ones. Up through the del Toro tenure and the early Jackson-directed period, the character of Tauriel (at different points "Itaril" or "Itarille") was concieved somewhat differently to the character in the finished film. She was always a Silvan Elf who moved through the ranks to become the head of the Guard, and always embroiled in a love story, rather after the manner of Arwen in the early drafts for Lord of the Rings.
Indeed, it seems like the role emerged out of an earlier intention to have Arwen in the film: Peter has mentioned it in both the previously-cited 2003 and 2006 interviews, as well as in the director's commentary to The Battle of the Five Armies. "We did try to have a cameo - even if it was a cameo - for Aragorn, and actually for Arwen, too: we tried to have Liv Tyler in the film."
Suitably, in the early drafts Itarille would have fallen in-love with a Rivendell elf, who seems to have served as a go-between for Thranduil and Elrond (and Arwen?). Aidan Turner read for this role, and it seems the love story migrated with him to the role of Kili.
His audition reveals some dialogue, seemingly directed at Elrond: "My Lord, Thranduil is wise, but in ths instance his judgement is clouded."
More importantly, it seems that early drafts made more Itarille's position at Thranduil's side. There exists an Alan Lee sketch, probably from the del Toro period, of Thranduil sat at his table, and Itarille at his side.
In Thranduil's audition scene, he admonishes Itaril "I do not accept incompetence from a captain of my guard" before becoming more cajoling: "Itaril, my fighter, my golden-eyed assasin: you have skill and cunning. You could go far."
I point all this out because of the character of Seren, described by Variety as "a trusted and lethal agent of King Thranduil." That sure sounds like this earlier conception of the role of Tauriel. Especially since she will likely also subsume the role of the Elven mediator: it's hard to imagine Seren NOT joining Strider and Halvrad on their quest for Gollum.
Others: Saruman's Search for the Ring, Balin Colony, et cetera
This has been mentioned in one of Philippa's quotes above, and Christopher Lee had spoken about wanting to portray this, but it isn't clear if this went any further than this. Likewise, I don't recall hearing anyone talking about dramatizing the story of Balin's Colony as part of the bridge film, but you never know! I have a hard time seeing either storyline put into The Hunt for Gollum, although either Saruman and/or Balin may be mentioned in dialogue.
There had been other ideas - they had thought of transplating the Barrow Downs into the Company's trail and got as far as scouting a location: it's in the background of one of the trekking shots early in An Unexpected Journey, and it's not hard to see how it might have metamorphosed into the High Fells sequence.
***
The Romantic in me finds this idea very tantalizing: the ability to, years later, act upon ideas that had been percolating in one's mind for years. It's a telling gesture, too, that out of the three film productions following The Hobbit - The War of the Rohirrim, now The Hunt for Gollum and later The Shadow of the Past - this is the only project to be written in earnest by Philippa AND Fran Walsh (IMDb also claims Peter is a "writer"), which can only speak to their eagerness to come to terms with this material: heck, when the project was announced they said Andy had "unfinished buisness" with Gollum!
I'm not sure they always intended to go back to the wellspring of some many of the same ideas - vis-a-vis the inclusion of Seren - but there's a certain fatefulness to the fact that they evidentally have. We can only hope that, having stewed in their minds for so many years, they will be able to tell this story in an elegant fashion.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on Thu, 4:26pm)
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