It looks like The Hunt for Gollum will take some time, as Gandalf himself says the team behind it is planning to make two films

As reported by Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is to be split into two films, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Warner Bros. looks set to continue the tradition of stretching out the Lord of the Rings films a bit too long with their next project, The Hunt for Gollum – you may remember that The Hobbit was turned into a trilogy despite there not being enough books to actually do that, but hey ho, there’s money to be made. And there’s even more money to be made, as the Gollum-centric film announced earlier this year is apparently set to be two films. This comes from Gandalf himself, Ian McKellen, who recently appeared on ITV’s This Morning, where he was asked if he’d appear in the film.

The actor recently suffered an accident during a production of a play he is currently starring in, prompting him to take time off work to recover, and was asked if he would be in it. “All I know is they called me and said these movies are going to be made, mainly about Gollum, Andy Serkis, who played Gollum, is going to direct, and the script will come out in the New Year, and then I’ll assess whether I want to come back,” McKellen said, echoing previous comments. He added that he would love to come back, and when asked if it would be just one movie, he replied: “I was told it would be two movies.”

Of course, that’s not a done deal yet, if the script doesn’t get into McKellen’s hands until next year, things could change pretty quickly. I’m also not entirely sure how Gollum’s hunt would be fascinating for two movies, but hey, who knows better than the directors who like to make money, right?