Why new Lord of the Rings movie is bringing back Gollum
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Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum's makers have delved into why they're bringing back the ring-obsessed creature.
Announced last week – 23 years after Gollum's first cinematic appearance in The Fellowship of the Ring – the project has Andy Serkis not only reprising his slimy character, but also in the director's chair. The franchise's Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing, with the latter pair on writing duties as well.
In conversation with Deadline, Jackson shared: "The Gollum/Sméagol character has always fascinated me because Gollum reflects the worst of human nature, whilst his Sméagol side is, arguably, quite sympathetic.
Related: Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis recalls being mocked over Gollum role
"I think he connects with readers and film audiences alike, because there's a little bit of both of them in all of us. We really want to explore his backstory and delve into those parts of his journey we didn't have time to cover in the earlier films.
"It's too soon to know who will cross his path, but suffice to say we will take our lead from Professor Tolkien," he added.
Meanwhile, Boyens selected Gollum's plight as one of the "most compelling" out of all the iconic characters, with his unnatural lifespan spreading across "such an interesting period" of Middle-earth's history.
"Andy is going to have a really interesting take," she said. "It's going to be his own take, because what we don't want this film to be is just the fourth film in the trilogy. This film has to work in its own way."
For Serkis, the evolution of motion capture technology is reason enough to dive back in.
The Andor actor explained: "Motion capture technology back then was pretty much restricted to interior sets and it was just motion capture at that time. And throughout the course of the evolution of the technology through the Apes movies, it changed.
"For instance, we were able to untether it from a volume and allow real performance capture, because in those three films, the first three films, the facial was all animated, copying my facial expressions. But it wasn't driven by a performance capture, the delicacy and the nuance that was then able to be caught using head-mounted cameras.
"It really has now reached a level where the authorship of the performances allows you to actually internalise more without any sense of overacting. This is something that is clearly working at a much greater and a deeper level now."
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power streams on Prime Video.
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