New Detailed Plot Synopsis Revealed For 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum'

An alleged detailed plot synopsis has been revealed for Andy Serkis’ upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum film.

Knight Edge Media reports that the film will begin at the end of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, where Gollum loses the ring to Bilbo Baggins, and will end with the beginning of the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

While that is where it will begin and end, the bulk of the film will take place between Bilbo’s disappearance at his birthday party and the formation of the Fellowship at Rivendell.

Additionally, the report claims there will be flashbacks to a young Sméagol.

The synopsis states:

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.

This synopsis indicates that the film won’t solely or even primarily be told from Gollum’s point of view, which is what producer Philippa Boyens has previously said.

For example, Boyens told Empire back in October 2024, “It’s a specific chunk of incredible untold story, told through the perspective of this incredible creature.”

While it is a good thing that the film won’t be entirely told through Gollum’s point of view, it is still concerning that they are claiming the film will reveal “untold truths,” test the resolve of Aragorn, and explore Gollum’s fractured soul.

Claiming to reveal “untold truths” sounds a whole lot like making things up that are contrary to the source material. It makes one think of what The Rings of Power did with mithril. The show wholly invented an origin for the ore claiming it was created after lightning struck a tree that contained the light of one of the lost Silmarils after an Elf poured all his light into the tree and a Balrog channeled all his darkness. The result was a new power described as “pure and light as good, as strong and unyielding as evil.” This power then seeps into the mountains and becomes mithril. Furthermore, the mithril is viewed as a physical way to prevent the Elves from fading in Middle-earth.

This is all in stark contrast to Tolkien’s lore that depicts mithril as a simply natural ore mined by the dwarves in the Misty Mountains. An ore that has no magical origin or properties. It’s only connection is that the ring Nenya was made from mithril.

Hopefully, this is not the case and the untold truths are more about the “great perils” Aragorn faced tracking down Gollum after Gandalf and the Wood-elves lost Gollum’s trail at the western edge of Mirkwood.

As for the film exploring Gollum’s fractured soul, this is something Serkis has made clear he wanted to explore. He told Deadline, “Gollum has always stuck with me throughout all of these years. I’ve read audio books of the trilogy and the Silmarillion and The Hobbit, so Tolkien’s world has never left me in all of that time since we did the first films. And the character particularly has remained such an enormous part of my life. So it’s absolutely thrilling to be able to go back and do a deep dive into his world again, and specifically into Gollum’s psychology.”

“I know we’re all interested in investigating on a deeper level who that character is, and on top of that, to be able to direct and hopefully create a film which has its place within the canon, but also something that’s fresh and new and a different approach,” he added.

Unfortunately, it’s unclear what more this film could explore that was not already explored in Peter Jackson’s films and Tolkien’s novels. In fact, Tolkien wrote to Michael Straight in Letter 181:

Gollum was pitiable, but he ended in persistent wickedness, and the fact that this worked good was no credit to him. His marvellous courage and endurance, as great as Frodo and Sam's or greater, being devoted to evil was portentous, but not honourable. I am afraid, whatever our beliefs, we have to face the fact that there are persons who yield to temptation, reject their chances of nobility or salvation, and appear to be 'damnable'. Their 'damnability' is not measurable in the terms of the macrocosm (where it may work good). But we who are all 'in the same boat' must not usurp the Judge. The domination of the Ring was much too strong for the mean soul of Sméagol. But he would have never had to endure it if he had not become a mean sort of thief before it crossed his path. Need it ever have crossed his path? Need anything dangerous ever cross any of our paths? A kind of answer cd. be found in trying to imagine Gollum overcoming temptation. The story would have been quite different! By temporizing, not fixing the still not wholly corrupt Smeagol-will towards good in the debate in the slag hole, he weakened himself for the final chance when dawning love of Frodo was too easily withered by the jealousy of Sam before Shelob's lair. After that he was lost.

The temptation for Serkis is clearly to try and present Gollum as misunderstood as so many people in Hollywood try to do with those who engage in sin. And that presentation downplays the grave evil that sin is.

In contrast, Tolkien makes clear that Gollum chooses evil and he rejects his chances of nobility or salvation.

In fact, in The Fellowship of the Ring, where J.R.R. Tolkien had Gandalf regaling the hunt for Gollum to Frodo he noted that while the Wood-elves were tracking Gollum through Mirkwood “the Woodmen said that there was some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests; it crept into holes to find the young; it slipped through windows to find cradles.”

If The Hunt for Gollum honors the source material it could be a good addition to Jackson’s film; otherwise it risks being just another piece of cultural vandalization in the vein of The Rings of Power and War of the Rohirrim.

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