The Hunt for More Tolkien

Door Jam: May 12, 2025

The Door Jam is a place to squeeze in articles about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, their work, adaptations of their fantasy worlds, news from other franchises, and interesting articles. Unless otherwise stated, I’m not endorsing (or criticizing) any of these but merely sharing them with you.

Warner Bros. announced a release date for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. While The Lord of the Rings trilogy is beloved, I’m not sure Warner Bros. will be able to recreate that magic because they have a different goal.

Middle-earth will be back in theaters for Christmas 2027. The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will premiere on Dec. 17, 2027. This marks a year delay, as the movie was originally said to be debuting in 2026.

That indicates some good news: they’re not rushing to get a movie out. But the existence of the movie itself is worrisome because it indicates how Warner Bros. views Tolkien’s legendarium.

Notice the movement of Middle-earth movies. The trilogy of The Lord of the Rings books were adapted into a trilogy of movies, then The Hobbit, a single book, was also adapted into a trilogy of movies. Now, The Hunt for Gollum will seemingly adapt a couple of lines from the appendices into a full movie.

This demonstrates the studio sees Middle-earth more as intellectual property to draw from than as a fantasy world to inhabit. To put it in Tolkien terms, I’m worried WB is delving too greedily and too deep. They are essentially strip mining every bit of possible content from one sliver of the legendarium because they believe it is the most marketable and profitable.

Other stories in Tolkien’s writings have not been told on screen. For any of their failures, at least The Rings of Power and The War of the Rohirrim moved out of the short time frame of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

To be clear, I hope The Hunt for Gollum will be fantastic. I enjoy spending time in Middle-earth. I just worry that we are on a downward trend of diminishing returns for movies set around the War of the Ring. I’d love to be proven wrong. We’ll see in two years.

Not Safe But Good

C.S. Lewis quote of the week

“The real trouble is that ‘kindness’ is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus, a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that ‘his heart’s in the right place’ and ‘he wouldn't hurt a fly,’ though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy, on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble.”

The Problem of Pain

Tumnus’ bookshelf

More books by or about Lewis or Tolkien

• On Writing (and Writers): A Miscellany of Advice and Opinions (hardcover) — C.S. Lewis ($13.79 -43%)

• Mere Christianity (paperback) — C.S. Lewis ($11.98 -33%)

• Christian Reflections (ebook) — C.S. Lewis ($10.66 -41%)

• The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings (paperback) — C.S. Lewis ($12.29 -35%)

Behind the Wardrobe

Sneak peek at the bonus articles

Below, paid subscribers can read about the book accuracy of the new White Witch, Narnia’s producer, hikes with connections to Lewis, a feminist responds to the Aslan casting controversy, a video of Tolkien on creating stories, “the Eagles are leaving” the New Zealand airport, how Tolkien was right about trees, and more.