The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is an upcoming prequel based on Peter Jackson’s acclaimed fantasy trilogy, drawing inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels to expand the world of Middle-earth even further onscreen. The movie takes place shortly before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, following Gandalf and Aragorn as they hunt down Gollum to prevent Sauron from acquiring the Ring of Power. Orlando Bloom has commented on potentially returning as Legolas in the highly anticipated prequel, which is currently slated for release in December 2027. Longtime Gollum actor Andy Serkis will direct.

Naturally, the cast of The Lord of the Rings coming together again for another adventure in Middle-earth is hugely exciting, but it also comes with some major challenges. Bloom has claimed that he’d only return if he were playing a younger version of Legolas, which would require the use of de-aging technology and advanced CGI. This has proven extremely controversial in the past; certain movies have used de-aging brilliantly, but it can be very distracting and jarring when done wrong.

Lord Of The Rings’ Next Movie May Have To De-Age Multiple Actors

De-Aging Is Never Easy To Pull Off

Whether Bloom returns to his iconic role or not, the fact remains that de-aging may be necessary to make The Hunt For Gollum work. It’s a prequel to the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, so all the characters that audiences know and love from Peter Jackson’s movies should technically be much younger than the actors currently are. Very little has been confirmed about The Hunt for Gollum’s story, but early details seem to indicate that it’s going to take place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

This creates some major complications regarding characters’ ages, particularly those who already appeared de-aged in The Hobbit. Thankfully, the realm of fantasy leaves some much-needed space to play with the rules of aging more liberally than most genres. Some of The Lord of the Rings’ characters are centuries old, and this never seemed to be a problem in Jackson’s original trilogy. This means actors like Bloom wouldn’t have to be de-aged too much – just enough to make them appear roughly the same age as they were in The Lord of the Rings.

De-Aging Is A Huge Challenge For Lord Of The Rings

The Movie Will Struggle To CGI Multiple Characters

While technology has vastly improved over the past few years, de-aging is still a mᴀssive challenge for movies to effectively pull off. Films like The Irishman and Captain Marvel have employed the technology to huge success, but it needs to be used sparingly or else audiences can easily become distracted. Done poorly, it can pull audiences from their viewing experience and add a false note to the whole production. Incidentally, Bloom was previously de-aged for his appearance in The Hobbit, but this was widely rejected by fans since the technology still wasn’t advanced enough to make it work.

Thankfully, de-aging capabilities have improved mᴀssively over the past 10 years. Bloom’s return would certainly look more convincing in The Hunt for Gollum than it did in The Hobbit trilogy, but the movie would still have some mᴀssive challenges to overcome, especially if more actors returned alongside him. Most early plot descriptions for The Hunt for Gollum have Aragorn listed as one of the story’s main characters; the more returning actors, the more distracting and overloaded the CGI is going to be. It can work sparingly, but not for several characters with lengthy screen time.

Would It Be Better For The Hunt For Gollum To Not De-Age Its Actors?

The Actors Could Simply Return As They Are Today

While the idea of bringing back a younger Legolas is definitely appealing, there’s an argument to be made that simply making returning actors look younger through makeup and prosthetics is a safer choice. One of the major problems with the de-aging technology in The Hobbit is that it distorted the actors’ performances, removing much of their humanity and making them seem almost robotic. Makeup and prosthetics can also be distracting, but at least the actors would still be able to act without too much interference.

The original Lord of the Rings trilogy is widely considered a masterpiece, so there’s a huge amount of pressure riding on The Hunt for Gollum to live up to its reputation. This same pressure is ultimately what caused fans to turn so aggressively on the Hobbit movies, which are generally fine but had unreasonable expectations to live up to. De-aging actors like Orlando Bloom will never be perfect, and it’s going to come with immense criticism no matter how good it is. Unfortunately, he will simply not look like the Legolas viewers best remember from the original movies, which is an unavoidable fact.

Recasting the characters is another viable option, but this would bring even more criticism from long-time fans who want to see their favorite actors back, particularly since so much effort went into bringing everyone back for The Hobbit. The safest option, despite the obvious challenges it brings, is to avoid de-aging altogether and trust that the actors will be able to make the characters seem young through their performances. It would require a certain suspension of disbelief, but fans of the fantasy genre should be used to that already.

Will Legolas Actually Be In The Hunt For Gollum?

Bloom Still Hasn’t Confirmed His Involvement

At this stage, it hasn’t even been confirmed that Legolas will return for the upcoming spinoff, and so much of this debate is largely speculative. However, The Hunt for Gollum’s timeline seems perfectly poised to bring the character back, as much of the тιтular hunt took place in Legolas’ home of Mirkwood. In the book, Aragorn brought Gollum to this elven homeland in order to keep him prisoner and hide him from Sauron’s watchful eye. Considering The Lord of the Rings‘ previous onscreen adventures, it would be odd to ignore him.

Although The Hunt for Gollum could definitely take some creative liberties to make the story fit more neatly with the Lord of the Rings movies, this is a pivotal detail that would be difficult to ignore. Mirkwood is a key location in Tolkien’s works, and the woodlands have become somewhat synonymous with Legolas and his family over the years. Including this region without bringing the character back, especially since Orlando Bloom has already expressed his desire to return, would be sure to stir up some controversy.