Every New Lord of the Rings Project Explained, From The Hunt for Gollum to a $100 Million RPG

How many new Lord of the Rings projects can you actually name off the top of your head? I tried counting them all before making this and lost track. It kind of feels like somebody at Warner Brothers walked into the office one morning and went, "Tolkien, let's just try and do all of it." New films, a new TV show, new video games, board games, Lego, even old games nobody thought about in years, all at once. So rather than making eight different videos this month, I am going through every single one, one project at a time, giving my honest take on whether each is actually worth getting excited about.

The one that has me the most conflicted, even after everything I have read about it, is The Hunt for Gollum. I still have not decided whether it should exist.

The Hunt for Gollum casts Jamie Dornan and Kate Winslet for its December 2027 release

A teaser has confirmed The Hunt for Gollum is coming in December 2027 after being pushed back from its original date. Andy Serkis is back as Gollum and this time he is directing too, with Peter Jackson producing. Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and Lee Pace are all confirmed to return.

New casting includes Jamie Dornan, who I know some people will remember from Fifty Shades of Grey and others, like me, from his role as a terrifying serial killer being hunted by Gillian Anderson's character across a television series. He was genuinely brilliant in that role. So when the AI concepts of him as Aragorn started circulating, I actually looked at them and thought it makes sense. I am not that pessimistic about Jamie Dornan.

Kate Winslet is joining too, and honestly, who does not like Kate Winslet. She actually turned down a role in the original trilogy years ago, so maybe this is her redemption arc. Anya Taylor-Joy is in it as well, playing an entirely new character, and that is where my first concern creeps in. Do we actually need more Tolkien characters? Middle-earth already has enough names to make remembering everyone's birthday impossible. I just hope they are adding characters because there is a genuinely good story, not because someone needed a face for the trailer.

Is there actually enough story in The Hunt for Gollum to justify a whole film

My biggest question is a genuine one, not me being negative: do we actually need this film? If you have read Tolkien, the actual Hunt for Gollum is not the most action-packed story ever written. It can be a little boring, tracking, searching, small encounters, not battles every five minutes. I read from Unfinished Tales, the essay called The Hunt for the Ring, which describes Gollum being captured in Mordor, tortured by Sauron, released, then captured again by Aragorn and marched to Thranduil's halls. He later escapes into Moria and vanishes for a very long time before he finds his way out.

That is a manhunt, not a war, which is why I think adapting it into a blockbuster is going to be harder than people realise. If there is one person I would trust to bring Gollum to life it is obviously Andy Serkis, the man who basically invented modern performance capture. Visually I have no concerns. It is whether the story justifies a whole film that I am still not convinced by. Even so, I will absolutely be there opening weekend, tickets booked too early, and whether it is brilliant or a disappointment, we are all going to end up talking about Middle-earth again anyway.

Shadow of the Past follows Sam's eldest daughter uncovering something left from the War of the Ring

Peter Jackson is not resting either. A second new film, Shadow of the Past, is in development, written by Stephen Colbert with Philippa Boyens and Colbert's own son, with Jackson attached again. Philippa Boyens deserves more credit than she gets. She is an Oscar-winning writer who co-wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies plus The Lovely Bones, so whenever her name is attached to a Tolkien project my confidence goes up a notch.

The story is set after the trilogy, following Sam, Merry and Pippin plus Sam's eldest daughter, uncovering something left behind from the War of the Ring, which sounds far more Tolkien than inventing another world-ending villain. It was announced on Tolkien Reading Day, probably not a coincidence. It leans on real material from Appendix B, including the passage describing Sam riding out from Bag End on his final journey and giving the Red Book to his daughter before passing over the sea as the last of the Ring-bearers.

What sold me further is that Sam, Merry and Pippin apparently retrace part of the Fellowship's original route after leaving Tom Bombadil's house, through the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs, places that mattered hugely in the books but never made it into Jackson's films, a bit like the Scouring of the Shire that fans have wanted properly adapted for years. Out of the two new films, this might be the one I am more excited for, because it is uncovering a story that was sitting there all along rather than forcing a new adventure into Middle-earth.

Rings of Power season 3 arrives this November covering the forging of the One Ring

Season 3 of Rings of Power arrives this November, covering the forging of the One Ring, one of the biggest events in the legendarium. My enjoyment depends entirely on what you are expecting going in. As a fantasy show I genuinely enjoyed it, it looks great and the music is brilliant, and season 2 was a real step up from season 1 for me.

The moment that won me over was not a battle scene, it was watching Sauron manipulate Celebrimbor, not with brute force but by making him doubt himself, nudging him one conversation at a time towards disaster. "That's the Sauron I wanted. Dangerous because he can walk into a room and convince the smallest person that every bad idea was actually their own." If you know the appendices inside out you will spend half the series pointing at the screen, and that is fair, but if Rings of Power gets someone to pick up the actual books afterwards, I do not see that as a bad thing. I am not judging season 3 until I have watched it.

Warhorse Studios is officially building an open-world Lord of the Rings RPG reportedly worth $100 million

What made me smile most researching this was Lord of the Rings War in the North Legacy Edition. It is still not officially confirmed, but the Steam listing was real enough that people are already talking. I played the original on Xbox 360, imagine three mates, a dwarf, an elf and a ranger, smashing through orcs and trolls together. It was not a huge hit in 2011 but it has become a cult classic, and a cleaned-up remaster is something I will take.

The bigger news is that Warhorse Studios, the Kingdom Come: Deliverance team, are officially building a full open-world Lord of the Rings RPG, reportedly with a $100 million budget. It is years away, but it is real. The only thing that made me raise an eyebrow is that one of the games they compared it to was Hogwarts Legacy, when they could have said The Witcher, Red Dead, Skyrim or Fable. But if they bring the same world-building they brought to Kingdom Come, this could be something special. I think we will almost certainly get a third age setting, though part of me still dreams of a first age game.

Lego's 8,000 piece Minas Tirith set leads a wave of new board games, miniatures and Magic cards

Lego's Minas Tirith set has over 8,000 pieces, the biggest Lord of the Rings Lego set ever made. I got mine as a gift, because I am not spending that kind of money on plastic bricks myself, but it is brilliant. New board games are arriving this year too, including Circle of Conflict, a new War of the Ring siege expansion, and the deck-builder Ascension, which is already out.

Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game is genuinely the healthiest it has been in years, with new plastic kits, real momentum, and a new Shelob model released earlier this year that is fantastic, though I do not have the patience to paint it. Magic the Gathering is heading back to Middle-earth with a Hobbit-themed set this month, and if you have never seen Lord of the Rings in concert, put it on your bucket list. I have seen The Two Towers and Return of the King live at the Royal Albert Hall with a full orchestra, and it is incredible. The Fellowship is still on my to-do list.

Whether you get back in through Lego, tabletop, Magic, a concert or just a film with a takeaway, there has never been a better time. If I could make one recommendation though, forget all of that for a minute and go read some Tolkien, even two minutes. The games are brilliant, the films are brilliant, but none of it quite replaces reading his words for yourself.

Out of everything, Shadow of the Past has me the most intrigued because it feels like the project showing the most respect for Tolkien, unless I have got that completely wrong. What I am most excited to get my hands on is the Warhorse RPG, and what I am hoping pays off is War in the North nostalgia, with Circle of Conflict now on my radar too.

What are you actually excited for, and what is going to be the thing that gets you back into Middle-earth?