(Official?) Hunt for Gollum Film Synopsis

[Otaku-sempai]

While the 'bots are away, let's catch up on some news for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Our Justin Sewill has posted a story on the homepage:

Hunt for Gollum film Synopsis promises “New characters, returning heroes”

Upcoming movie to take fans on an unexpected journey through time in telling the story of Sméagol.

A new Spy Report collaboration with Knight Edge Media brings what looks like a leaked, possibly official, synopsis for the upcoming feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. While we cannot absolutely verify if it’s a “final” version, the story points hinted at align with previous rumors, leaks, casting auditions, and even things Ian Mckellen has said.

TheOneRing.net reached out to WB for comment or confirmation, but they had nothing to share at this time; nor had anyone in New Zealand.

Film Synopsis
Here is the full text as sent to us via spy report. Reminder, you can drop us inside info (or casual info!) to spymaster ~at~ theonering.net

Hunt for Gollum film synopsis text
Before the Fellowship, one creature’s obsession holds the key to Middle-earth’s survival — or its demise. In The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, we meet young Smeagol — an outsider drawn to trinkets and mischief — long before The One Ring consumed him and began his tragic descent into the tortured, deceitful creature Gollum. With the ring lost and carried away by Bilbo Baggins, Gollum finds himself compelled to leave his cave in search of it.

Gandalf the Grey calls upon Aragorn, still known as the ranger Strider, to track the elusive creature whose knowledge of the whereabouts of the ring could tip the balance toward the Dark Lord Sauron. Set in the shadowed time between Bilbo’s birthday disappearance and the Fellowship’s formation, this perilous journey through Middle-earth’s darkest corners reveals untold truths, tests the resolve of its future king, and explores the fractured soul and backstory of Gollum, one of Tolkien’s most enigmatic characters.

Directed by original cast member Andy Serkis, produced by Peter Jackson, and written & produced by Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens — the creative team behind the Oscar-winning trilogy — this live-action movie bridges the beloved films with new characters, returning heroes, and a deeply engaging origin story that resets the stage for, and changes everything you know about the legendary Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Full article here: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/20...sis-promises-new-characters-returning-heroes/

 

[Chen G.]

There also a two-line "blurb" from Deadline that's mostly consonant with this. So I don't really doubt its veracity, even if one of my friends doing spy-work on Gollum says it sounds AI-ish.

Ultimately, there are a few questions which this synopsis doesn't quite answer:

Is the film more Gollum-centric or more Aragorn centric? The first paragraph orients us towards Gollum, but the seconds puts a major emphasis on Aragorn. I bet the filmmakers themselves couldn't easily answer this question, and probably wouldn't be able to until they do a rough cut of the film. It might end up being along the lines of Thorin and Bilbo.

Is the film strictly set between the Farewell Party and Moria, or does it also cover the period between the trilogies? Again, the first paragraph seems to imply the latter, while the third the former. Obviously Peter's scripts tend to include lots of flashbacks, but just in terms of where the emphasis lay, we don't know.

What other storylines may be brought to bear upon this film? Philippa mentioned several times that they keep on finding how this story is intertwined into other things and how, actually, "there's a lot there." So you wonder what else might be woven through this film: I mean, the attack of Mirkwood is concurrent with the one on Osgiliath. Gollum ends-up in Moria after it's been cleared of Balin's folk: Do you show that? This synopsis doesn't tell.

What NEW is this film promising to add to the series? Philippa seems confident that this film promises much that's new, in terms of place we go to (where?), dramatic situations and new characters. But we have almost no way of guessing at any of that. The synopsis does promise new characters but with the possible exception of other rangers, we have no way of knowing who those might be.

This second question, in particular, has major ramifications, including for the part of Aragorn: is the "Strider" they're looking for - with an age quota a full decade younger than Mortensen was shooting Lord of the Rings - for flashbacks of some sort? Is the film strictly a "sidequel" or an "interquel" like the original conception of the bridge film?

Related to this last point, how will the film play to an audience? What knowledge does it pressuposes of Fellowship of the Ring? What knowledge does it pressuposes of The Two Towers? An Unexpected Journey? Will we ever be able to sit back and watch from The War of the Rohirrim, through The Hobbit, this film and up through The Lord of the Rings as a cohesive narrative and aesthetic experience?

Questions, questions that need answering!

 

[Otaku-sempai]

I think that The Hunt for Gollum will split its focus between Aragorn and Gollum. My best guess is that the film is mostly set in the interval between Bilbo's birthday and the Fellowship entering Moria with a prologue (or flashbacks) exploring Smeagol's past. Other flashbacks might trace Gollum's travels in search of Bilbo and the Ring. We might get a few glimpses into Aragorn's past as well. Depending on how far Aragorn goes in tracing Gollum's previous movements, we might see the new Lake-town or even Dale restored and ruled by King Brand (played by Luke Evans perhaps?). I would not be surprised to find our Ranger in the Beornings' territory at some point and interacting with Beorn's son and successor Grimbeorn the Old.

I suspect that the young age in the casting call for Aragorn might be connected to possible future film projects, specifically one or more movies exploring his previous journeys and errantries (Third Age 2957 to 2980 and perhaps beyond in the continuity of Tolkien's legendarium).

 

[Chen G.]

My best guess is that the film is mostly set in the interval between Bilbo's birthday and the Fellowship entering Moria with a prologue (or flashbacks) exploring Smeagol's past. Other flashbacks might trace Gollum's travels in search of Bilbo and the Ring.

You see, you'd think that would be the bulk of the movie - and it may well be! - but then:

The Hunt for Gollum very much evolved out of the "bridge film" concept, which explicitly included the Hunt for Gollum as a plotline (see also this comment by Philippa Boyens).

Focusing more on the period between the trilogies fits with a more Gollum-centric vision for this film, which on balance seems to be the direction they're taking, at least consciously.

Focusing on this period is also more familiar territory in the sense that it's easier for the filmmakers to ressurect Dale (still ruled by Bard at the time that Gollum gets there) and the Woodland Realm, from just a decade age.

Any number of interviews from the creatives point in that director. Most notably, this interview of Andy's - from pretty far down the line in terms of the development of the script - where he CORRECTS the reporter who suggests the film is "set sometime in the Fellowship [era]" and instead says it sits "between losing the Ring to Bilbo Baggins and The Fellowship of the Ring."

This can also sit nicely with the "Young Strider" thing.

I suspect that the young age in the casting call for Aragorn might be connected to possible future film projects, specifically one or more movies exploring his previous journeys and errantries (Third Age 2957 to 2980 and perhaps beyond in the continuity of Tolkien's legendarium).

Sure, that's one of basically two options for the second film which seem the likeliest. But I just wonder if they will also have the "Mature" Aragorn (as opposed to "Old Elessar") of Mortensen's for scenes set at the time of Fellowship of the Ring.

 

[Silvered-glass]

So... it sounds like there will be a heavy focus on flashbacks to pad out the story in length and complexity. I expect that the promised new characters will feature Gollum's grandmother, among others.

I continue to be pessimistic about this movie. I don't trust the writers enough to think that they can make a good movie from very little genuine Tolkien content and a setup that tonally would be more suited for a depressing art movie than a fantasy blockbuster with wide appeal. We already know how Gollum's story ends and have a good idea on how it begins, and it's all grim and hopeless.

Aragorn in turn is better main character material for the movie, but he has no character arc for the time period in question, so the writers will have to make up something. We could well end up seeing flashbacks about Aragorn's past too, maybe even about his birth and the prophecies associated with it. It would contrast with the depressing Gollum flashbacks, I suppose. The core of the movie could potentially be contrasting the characters and choices of Aragorn and Gollum.

 

[Chen G.]

There are two arguments here and we need to clearly delineate them:

That - not being an adaptation of a novel - it will have that uncanny "arsatz Tolkien" feel that stuff like Rings of Power has. Now THAT'S a very reasonable concern - even though Gollum relies on more material than people think and is a single film, not a 42+ hour show - but it hardly circumscribes the project. But either way it is a DIFFERENT argument from...

Saying that these writers are not good enough to write well without having Tolkien as guard-rails. That's an argument that can really only be said by people with a superficial knowledge of their oeuvre. They had no problem almost winning an Oscar for an ORIGINAL screenplay for Heavenly Creatures, to name just one examples. They had their ups and downs - who doesn't? - but they're great writers.

I just think it's always cause for excitement to see the same core creatives come back to "their" film series. Jackson and Weiner as producers, de Luca and Kamins as executive producers, Walsh and Boyens as writers, Serkis and Wood as actors, but also Dan Hennah as production designer, Alan Lee and John Howe as concept artists, etc...That will never not be exciting, at least to me. What other film series of this scope has this degree of involvement from so many of the same people so far down the line? It's a uniquely Herculean achievement.

Ontop of that, I just find it Romantic that filmmakers can, all this time later, come back to an idea that had been percolating since the earliest conceptual phases of the project (circa early 1997). If we had no trouble being excited for the bridge film in 2006-2009, then I see no reason to not see that excitement revived today. Stories are plot, but they're also structure and the idea of putting some extra adhesive between the end of The Battle of the Five Armies and the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring is not an unappealing concept, especially now that we have the symmetry of two trilogies.

 

[Silvered-glass]

There are two arguments here and we need to clearly delineate them:

That - not being an adaptation of a novel - it will have that uncanny "arsatz Tolkien" feel that stuff like Rings of Power has. Now THAT'S a very reasonable concern - even though Gollum relies on more material than people think and is a single film, not a 42+ hour show - but it hardly circumscribes the project. But either way it is a DIFFERENT argument from...

Saying that these writers are not good enough to write well without having Tolkien as guard-rails. That's an argument that can really only be said by people with a superficial knowledge of their oeuvre. They had no problem almost winning an Oscar for an ORIGINAL screenplay for Heavenly Creatures, to name just one examples. They had their ups and downs - who doesn't? - but they're great writers.

The precedent of The Hobbit movie trilogy does not fill me with confidence. I know the main fault lies with the studio for demanding an epic fantasy trilogy on a quick schedule, but my opinion is that the new non-Tolkien content just isn't anywhere near the level of the parts sourced directly from Tolkien, with very few exceptions. Somehow the end result is less mature than Tolkien's children's book while striving to be the opposite.

The Hunt for Gollum benefits from what presumably was a more leisurely pre-production period, but the narrative material is also more difficult than The Hobbit bordering on unfilmable by normal standards without considering the LotR brand name appeal. The main "plot" is just a fragment of a backstory that Tolkien never intended to stand on its own. There is no satisfactory narrative arc, and the film-makers will need to produce one somehow, without contradicting the movies earlier and later in the timeline. The catharsis of Gollum's death won't happen until much later in the timeline. Notably, letting Gollum have a happy ending or even much in the way of permanent character growth in this movie is completely impossible without getting into really bizarre solutions, such as ones involving multiple parallel timelines or a flashforward into Gollum's soul being freed by lava and him being reborn as a normal hobbit baby who will hopefully make different choices in life.

I just think it's always cause for excitement to see the same core creatives come back to "their" film series. Jackson and Weiner as producers, de Luca and Kamins as executive producers, Walsh and Boyens as writers, Serkis and Wood as actors, but also Dan Hennah as production designer, Alan Lee and John Howe as concept artists, etc...That will never not be exciting, at least to me. What other film series of this scope has this degree of involvement from so many of the same people so far down the line? It's a uniquely Herculean achievement.

A good script is crucial to the narrative success of a movie. Good production values cannot save a movie that has a fundamentally broken script. Being a completely separate movie unconnected to the rest would actually be good for The Hunt for Gollum in the artistic sense, as there would be more leeway to deal with plot issues. For example, Gollum's death could be shown without a concern for the chronologically later movies being either spoiled or contradicted. Or it could be possible to focus on Aragorn the action hero to make the script easier to write and therefore easier to get to a functioning state, even if the result wouldn't be as unique as having Gollum as a true main character.

Ontop of that, I just find it Romantic that filmmakers can, all this time later, come back to an idea that had been percolating since the earliest conceptual phases of the project (circa early 1997). If we had no trouble being excited for the bridge film in 2006-2009, then I see no reason to not see that excitement revived today. Stories are plot, but they're also structure and the idea of putting some extra adhesive between the end of The Battle of the Five Armies and the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring is not an unappealing concept, especially now that we have the symmetry of two trilogies.

Scripts need internal structure too. The Hunt for Gollum is being released as a single movie, not as a middle episode of a miniseries.

And as for the overall structure, excess bridging material added for the sake of having something there can easily unbalance it all. The Hobbit is an excellent demonstration of how the whole can get dragged down by content that didn't need to be there in the first place and how the whole can sometimes be improved by cutting out entire subplots. When all the other movies in the series are entirely understandable without The Hunt for Gollum, there is good reason to question what the movie is really supposed to add to the series.

I think only a genius auteur could pull off this movie, script-wise, and I don't think we have grounds to expect that level of proficiency. An origin story for Barliman Butterbur would also be unnecessary but much easier to write into something that works as a movie.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

My best guess is that the film is mostly set in the interval between Bilbo's birthday and the Fellowship entering Moria with a prologue (or flashbacks) exploring Smeagol's past. Other flashbacks might trace Gollum's travels in search of Bilbo and the Ring.

You see, you'd think that would be the bulk of the movie - and it may well be! - but then:

The Hunt for Gollum very much evolved out of the "bridge film" concept, which explicitly included the Hunt for Gollum as a plotline (see also this comment by Philippa Boyens).

Focusing more on the period between the trilogies fits with a more Gollum-centric vision for this film, which on balance seems to be the direction they're taking, at least consciously.

Focusing on this period is also more familiar territory in the sense that it's easier for the filmmakers to ressurect Dale (still ruled by Bard at the time that Gollum gets there) and the Woodland Realm, from just a decade age.

Any number of interviews from the creatives point in that director. Most notably, this interview of Andy's - from pretty far down the line in terms of the development of the script - where he CORRECTS the reporter who suggests the film is "set sometime in the Fellowship [era]" and instead says it sits "between losing the Ring to Bilbo Baggins and The Fellowship of the Ring."

This can also sit nicely with the "Young Strider" thing.

That's certainly another possibility. As I said, I'm just making a guess. The problem is that we have been getting conflicting reports and even this one is not confirmed to be official or accurate.

I suspect that the young age in the casting call for Aragorn might be connected to possible future film projects, specifically one or more movies exploring his previous journeys and errantries (Third Age 2957 to 2980 and perhaps beyond in the continuity of Tolkien's legendarium).

Sure, that's one of basically two options for the second film which seem the likeliest. But I just wonder if they will also have the "Mature" Aragorn (as opposed to "Old Elessar") of Mortensen's for scenes set at the time of Fellowship of the Ring.

I see three likely options for what will likely follow The Hunt for Gollum. 1. A film about the battles in the North (Mirkwood, Lorien, Dale & Erebor) bringing back many actors and characters from the Hobbit films. 2. The Journeys and Errantries of Aragorn as previously discussed. 3. Going farther back in the Third Age to the end of Arthedain and fall of Angmar. Introducing many new characters and situations unfamiliar to movies-only fans.

 

[Chen G.]

The precedent of The Hobbit movie trilogy does not fill me with confidence. I know the main fault lies with the studio for demanding an epic fantasy trilogy on a quick schedule.

Not really. The whole issue about the preproduction period is a kind of red herring, that has been propped-up on YouTube in what Michael Pellerin, the director of the making-ofs, had denounced both to TORn and elsewhere as editing his footage in a misleading way to make the point seem more melodramatic than it was.

Whatever the faults of those films may be - and they're very much in the eye of the beholder, and clearly far from fatal given the success of the trilogy, including fairly good reviews - they were things that Peter made as conscious aesthetic choices, not things borne out of a shortage of time, nor out of some (non-existent) studio bugbear pulling the strings.

I just refuse to give into a kind of creative equivalent of cancel culture, whereby when you make one bad film (yes, The Hobbit is three entries but they're cut from the cloth of one long shoot) in a beloved series, you're bad, will always be bad, and have always been "secretly" bad and your successes have to be explained away. Just because one didn't like The Hobbit doesn't mean Peter and Andy can't spin something more like Lord of the Rings out of this.

And yes, I know that's probably not where you were going with this, but I was on a roll. []

I see three likely options for what will likely follow The Hunt for Gollum. 1. A film about the battles in the North (Mirkwood, Lorien, Dale & Erebor) bringing back many actors and characters from the Hobbit films. 2. The Journeys and Errantries of Aragorn as previously discussed. 3. Going farther back in the Third Age to the end of Arthedain and fall of Angmar. Introducing many new characters and situations unfamiliar to movies-only fans.

Basically the way I see it as well. I think they'll want to do either [1] or [2], or both, first. They have several reasons to do so:

They want to fill-in the period of The War of the Ring, which is the substance of their film series. If all these films are courses in a single meal, an Angmar trilogy would be a different meal, in a different sitting and different courses, in a different branch of the same restaurant chain.

They want to get out of the way, as it were, those premises that rely on the vintage cast, while that's still feasible. Angmar you could make whenever.

Ditto with the original crew, insofar as these films are more closely knit into the times, places, people and events of the existing films.

If they won't make those interquels, they know the studio eventually will, with other filmmakers and at an even greater time remove, so better do it now themselves.

Some of these story premises are ones they had toyed with making for a while: The Hunt for Gollum since 1997, The War in the North since around the same time as well. Young Aragorn came on their radar more during the early period discussing with Amazon.

Certainly with Gollum, they prize the opportunity to do a kind of "victory lap" over the set of films they've made. It must be an appealing concept.

These films allow them to take bite-sizes of the apple instead of a big gulp, as would be represented by an Angmar trilogy. So it's less daunting, and less risky, especially with the precedent of The War of the Rohirrim, and the "competition" from Rings of Power.

By putting out nine or ten films with a strong narrative and stylistic congurence, they're effectivelly creating a strong "bedrock" upon which other films, set at greater time remove from the War of the Ring, can be built.

 

[DGHCaretaker]

Whatever the faults of those films may be - and they're very much in the eye of the beholder, and clearly far from fatal given the success of the trilogy, including fairly good reviews - they were things that Peter made as conscious aesthetic choices, not things borne out of a shortage of time, nor out of some (non-existent) studio bugbear pulling the strings.

Agreed. People recognize a slope, or trend, when they see one. Jackson was tacking strongly toward increased CGI and silly humor from the LOTR trilogy and into The Hobbit, from an Elven surfboard and mûmakil to Dwarven pants and barrels. The fear is where to next, but this isn't Jackson directing, so there's hope...

 

[Chen G.]

when I said: "I just refuse to give into a kind of creative equivalent of cancel culture, whereby when you make one bad film (yes, The Hobbit is three entries but they're cut from the cloth of one long shoot) in a beloved series, you're bad, will always be bad, and have always been 'secretly' bad."

The way you're putting out the argument, I might substitute "secretly" bad for "implicitly" bad. I just don't see the films like this. The Lord of the Rings was not good in spite of tossing Dwarves and Elven surfboards: it was cool and audiences the world around delighted in it.

As for the directing situation here, I think it's quite unique. Most of the discourse sees the situation as "Andy, the actor behind Gollum, taking on the Gollum movie." But what I see is "Andy, the second-unit director, promoted to main unit."

It happened before: the vintage Bond films were all directed by a small group of directors, some of which started as editors and second unit directors for the earlier directors. But even there these were very experienced production people, whereas Andy is an actor who got his first real break directing under Jackson's baton. He's kind of "homegrown."

So yeah, with that arrangement, plus Walsh and Boyens writing, Jackson producing and supplying the crew and the facilities, I wouldn't count on this having a profoundly different sensibility. The only real change, thus far, is Andy brought in "his" director of photography (Robert Richardson).

 

[Silvered-glass]

Whatever the faults of those films may be - and they're very much in the eye of the beholder, and clearly far from fatal given the success of the trilogy, including fairly good reviews - they were things that Peter made as conscious aesthetic choices, not things borne out of a shortage of time, nor out of some (non-existent) studio bugbear pulling the strings.

I just refuse to give into a kind of creative equivalent of cancel culture, whereby when you make one bad film (yes, The Hobbit is three entries but they're cut from the cloth of one long shoot) in a beloved series, you're bad, will always be bad, and have always been "secretly" bad and your successes have to be explained away. Just because one didn't like The Hobbit doesn't mean Peter and Andy can't spin something more like Lord of the Rings out of this.

You can't convince me that the decision to make a short book into three long movies was made on artistic rather than commercial grounds. The Hobbit as it stands requires a sufficiently ruthless fanedit to become a good movie, and it is specifically the added new material that is the problem. Consider also The War of the Rohirrim. That one flopped quietly despite having the skeleton of a workable canon plot on which to build.

The big obstacle for The Hunt for Gollum is that it is constrained by the canon in the worst of ways while also lacking a solid foundation to serve as a framework for making a movie. The choice of Gollum as a main character is the detail that dooms the effort in my opinion. The difficulty level approaches impossible on that one. I for one am at a complete loss at imagining how the plot is supposed to work on all the levels it needs to work to be a good movie. A total genre shift into a depressing art film is impossible here, and Gollum is a very poor replacement for the more heroic and likable Frodo and Bilbo. If Gollum has a character arc in which he grasps for goodness but is ultimately pushed back to darkness, that would be completely failing as a bridge movie, so that someone watching the movies in chronological order would enjoy the later movies less for repeating the same old plot from The Hunt for Gollum, while someone who watches in production order would have no suspense because he knows from the start that Gollum won't be redeemed and dies a villain.

I genuinely would be more hopeful about an origin story for Barliman Butterbur. There are so many ways to make that one work. You could turn it into adventure, drama, horror, comedy, crime thriller, etc. even if the Tolkien connections would end up mostly tangential.

 

[Chen G.]

You can't convince me that the decision to make a short book into three long movies was made on artistic rather than commercial grounds.

It was. There's not the merest suggestion from anyone involved that the decision was made by anyone other than Jackson. Both himself, Boyens, the lead actors (who were appraised to this early) and even one of the executives - all say that the decision was Peter's.

What's more, it's not the case that they set out to turn the novel into a trilogy: they shot it as two films. The decision to turn into a trilogy was made towards the end of the shoot, at a point where they realized they simply scripted and shot too much material for two films.

As can be easily demonstrated, the trilogy was indeed created editorially: almost everything you see it in was going to be in the two-film version. Essentially we got three 160-minute films in place of two 210-minute films.

The writing was very much on the wall for a long time: Early on, Guillermo del Toro said it "really is barely containable into two movies." Mike Mignola, whom del Toro later invited to pitch in on the movie, said: "wow, it looks like a 16 hour, insane movie, there's so much in it. It's too early for me to tell how much stuff is going to get paired down." He estimated it would take 370 days to shoot!

Then, when Peter took over and they did a schedule, he was taken aback to find that what they scripted would take 250 days to shoot: not far off of the 274 days principal photography on The Lord of the Rings ultimately took. Throughout the production, actors constantly joked that scene 88, to name just one example, could constitute a third film.

Whatever failings one attributes to the films, they are Peter's choices alltogether. When you're the director of The Lord of the Rings, you don't get bossed around by studio executives, and least of all by somebody like Toby Emmerich, who worked with Peter on Rings and was generally very sympathetic. Soon after The Hobbit, Peter chose to bring his WWI documentary to Emmerich.

 

[DGHCaretaker]

...The choice of Gollum as a main character is the detail that dooms the effort in my opinion...

We'll know later about Gollum, but for now "The Last Jedi" could just as well have been titled "The Hunt for Luke." Gollum can be a MacGuffin with limited screen time. We don't know. Do you? This could be a Paper Tiger argument in retrospect. Or not?

"The Last Jedi" was indeed doomed, but not because Luke was the main character. But probably because he wasn't. Heh!

 

[Otaku-sempai]

...The choice of Gollum as a main character is the detail that dooms the effort in my opinion...

We'll know later about Gollum, but for now "The Last Jedi" could just as well have been titled "The Hunt for Luke." Gollum can be a MacGuffin with limited screen time. We don't know. Do you? This could be a Paper Tiger argument in retrospect. Or not?

"The Last Jedi" was indeed doomed, but not because Luke was the main character. But probably because he wasn't. Heh!

Silvered-glass is basing that on the alleged synopsis--though, to me, it indicates that Gollum and Aragorn might equally become the main characters of the film. The document dies line up well with many of the leaks that we've seen even as it contradicts others. I find it suspicious that Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou are missing from the writers' credits just as Fran Walsh has been added to them.

 

[Chen G.]

The synopsis merely picks and chooses names that will "sell". It doesn't mean ONLY Fran and Philippa are writing: they're sharing script duties with Papageorgiou and Gittins.

I'm curious if Peter will end-up getting a script credit or not. It's clear he helps shape the scripts, both from a bunch of interviews and also, how could he not? He lives with Walsh, and Boyens lives across the lawn. The script is probably being written on his kitchen table.

Remember The War of the Rohirrim: Philippa was first announced as a "Creative consultant." Then she became "Producer" and when the film came out, she ended-up having a "Story by" co-credit!

 

[Silvered-glass]

I think inside The Hobbit trilogy there is a masterpiece of film, but that masterpiece is a single movie about two hours long.

The writing was very much on the wall for a long time: Early on, Guillermo del Toro said it "really is barely containable into two movies." Mike Mignola, whom del Toro later invited to pitch in on the movie, said: "wow, it looks like a 16 hour, insane movie, there's so much in it. It's too early for me to tell how much stuff is going to get paired down." He estimated it would take 370 days to shoot!

Then, when Peter took over and they did a schedule, he was taken aback to find that what they scripted would take 250 days to shoot: not far off of the 274 days principal photography on The Lord of the Rings ultimately took. Throughout the production, actors constantly joked that scene 88, to name just one example, could constitute a third film.

Whatever failings one attributes to the films, they are Peter's choices alltogether. When you're the director of The Lord of the Rings, you don't get bossed around by studio executives, and least of all by somebody like Toby Emmerich, who worked with Peter on Rings and was generally very sympathetic. Soon after The Hobbit, Peter chose to bring his WWI documentary to Emmerich.

The expedition to Dol Guldur. Lake-town politics. Tauriel's entire character. Battles, battles, and more battles. The Hobbit trilogy is riddled with needless spinning the wheels and overlong scenes to transparently pad out the running time.

It is standard for people who work in the film industry to have contracts that prohibit any public comments disparaging their worked-on film and its quality under a very heavy monetary penalty. Important members of the crew such as directors and lead actors often also have in their contracts a requirement to promote the film in the media to generate positive publicity.

A director working for a film company is a hired employee. The director may have a lot of freedom in how to do things, but the company executives have the last word and can set hard requirements, such as mandating that the resulting film must be rated PG-13 for maximum sales. The studio also has the final say on the running time of a movie and can insist on recutting a film against a director's wishes. If a director is unhappy with the management, the director can leave... and Guillermo del Toro ended up leaving.


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But more importantly, as I said the real issue is the sheer difficulty of making a functional good movie out of The Hunt for Gollum based on the information we have. Even the biggest auteur in the world would be in such a bind that I'm not sure if it's even possible to fulfill the constraints while making a reasonably good movie, the constraints here being the things we know and can reasonably infer about the movie, most notably including the choice of Gollum as a main character.


__________________________________________________


Anyway, I decided to write my own version of how I would handle The Hunt for Gollum. It is just a rough treatment written quickly, as polishing and getting into detail would be extraordinarily pointless in this case.

I used the following rules:
1. The movie is a feature-length fantasy epic titled The Hunt for Gollum.
2. The movie covers the events involving the hunt for Gollum after Bilbo's birthday party.
3. I am not trying to predict the course of the Serkis movie.
4. Compatibility with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies will be maintained.

Here is the plot:

Gandalf researches the history of the One Ring in Minas Tirith and wants to keep the purpose of his research secret even from Denethor who feigns disinterest, but someone has Gandalf under surveillance. Who could it be?

Gandalf makes contact with Aragorn. Aragorn agrees to hunt for Gollum. But someone was listening in secret and overheard their conversation.

Aragorn asks around about rumors of a strange creature that has been stealing from farms and has even threatened babies in their cribs. Aragorn catches Gollum's trail and tracks him down carefully. Aragorn catches Gollum after some failed attempts. Aragorn starts to bring Gollum to Gandalf, but then a large number of Gondorian soldiers appear.. They had also been hunting Gollum and are led by Faramir. Denethor had learned of Gandalf's plans and wants to capture Gollum and take him to Gondor. Denethor has figured out that Gollum has something to do with the One Ring.

Aragorn doesn't want to give up Gollum to Denethor. Gollum takes advantage of everyone being distracted and escapes from Aragorn and the soldiers.

Sauron has noticed Gondor's strange troop movements and sends many of his own troops as a response to this strange provocation. Cue fighting. The Gondorians do pretty well but also take significant losses. Faramir comments that Gondor will rue these losses in the future. Boromir comes with reinforcements to help his little brother. Meanwhile Aragorn continues hunting Gollum while dispatching random Orc patrols. Eventually Aragorn catches Gollum again near Mirkwood.

Aragorn takes Gollum to Mirkwood. Gandalf interrogates Gollum in a scene that isn't shown because we must maintain Gandalf's image as a kind and righteous person. Gandalf departs in a hurry to the Shire. A spy from Mordor watches him leave. Denethor calls Faramir a failure. At the very end, Gollum escapes again.

 

[Chen G.]

Ultimately, you need to present POSITIVE evidence that the decision to make it a trilogy was studio-driven, and...there isn't any. All the evidence is it was Peter's decision, based on the footage, and there's simply no good reason (that is to say, substantive evidence) to question that.

The idea was Peter's. We have a fairly comprehensive understanding of when and how it came about. They simply shot huge amounts of stuff, and to squash it into two films you would end up with 210 minute films, so they split it up.

 

[Chen G.]

Peter's films in general grow in the telling: his first feature was supposed to be a 20-minute short. The Lord of the Rings was at some points as short as a single film, and even when it became a trilogy, you'll see interviews of Peter deluding himself it would clock in at six hours. His King Kong, a remake of a 100 minute movie, became a three-hour behemoth.

His WWI documentary was supposed to be 30 minutes: it ended up being 100. And his Beatles documentary became a...won't you guess, a trilogy! That's just how he is, and when you get into the spirit of his particular brand of maximalism, it's not so unsuccesful as some might think it is.

Heck, even The Hunt for Gollum had its gestation in scenes Peter had wanted to shoot, probably since early 1997.

 

[Silvered-glass]

So... as the alternative to the studio mandating three long movies for The Hobbit, which should be easy to understand from a cold financial perspective that strives to maximize profit, we just have to believe that Peter Jackson is a has-been who has completely lost the plot with regards to making movies and added a ton of useless bloat to The Hobbit because that's the way he wanted The Hobbit to be, all on his own. That's not exactly saying promising things about The Hunt for Gollum, you know.

I've seen some of PJ's early movies, namely Braindead and Meet the Feebles. Neither was particularly bloated. Forgotten Silver wasn't either. PJ is on record for preferring the theatrical editions of LotR, considering them the artistically superior versions. If PJ had filmed LotR like he filmed The Hobbit trilogy, the LotR series would have been 18 three-hour movies long and filled with pointless sidetracks like lengthy characterization being given to Barliman Butterbur and his family, a subplot about Tom Bombadil fighting unruly wraiths disturbing the peace and cracking jokes, an in-depth look into the bitter internal political struggles in Lórien, multiple new Orc fights to make sure that all the 18 movies have plentiful action scenes, etc. The LotR trilogy leaves out a bunch of canon material to fit the running time, but The Hobbit scrounges for additional canon material in the LotR appendices and makes up new original plotlines to reach LotR-comparable minutes with great difficulty and artistically poor editing choices.

It should be easy to see that the adaptation philosophies are entirely different in the two cases, and the studio executives wanting more money (3x guaranteed hit movies => 3x the ticket sales) neatly explains it all.

People with contractual obligations to be positive about something cannot be relied on to speak the truth or especially the whole truth about that particular thing. If you listened only to promotional interviews you'd think that Hollywood was producing nothing but masterpieces.