The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will digitally de-age some of its characters using machine learning and AI, director Andy Serkis has admitted.
A prequel to the original The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Serkis’ spinoff will see Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen return to their legendary roles of Frodo and Gandalf — more than 25 years on from when Fellowship of the Ring released.
Many fans had wondered how the film would handle the fact that Wood and McKellen are now a quarter of a century older. And now, via an interview with Variety, we appear to have an answer: some level of digital de-aging will be used to make characters such as Frodo and Gandalf appear more similar to their younger selves.
Discussing the controversial topic of AI usage in filmmaking, Serkis said he believed the technology was “valuable” as long as it was “not exploitative and as long as it’s not harming anybody.” One use for AI, Serkis said, was to create “reference material” similar to how “in the old days you get reference images for something.”
“Well, now you can prompt something and get a result,” Serkis continued. “And I don’t have any problem with that. When it becomes exploitative and people are not remunerated for the work that they’ve done, or it’s used in nefarious, or mean-spirited or pornographic ways, then of course, that’s terrible and we’ve only brought it upon ourselves. I’ve said this before and I mean it — we are the parents of AI, and we have to be good parents and teach AI well. And if we teach AI well, then it can help us across many industries.”
Asked if Serkis planned to use AI in The Hunt for Gollum, the actor-turned-director replied: “Not at present, other than some of the de-aging,” before refusing to confirm specifically which actors would be subject to an AI de-aging process.
“There’s a little bit of de-aging for some of the characters and machine learning is part of the process,” Serkis continued, going on to compare the technology to Jackson’s usage of a computer program which helped generate animations for the original trilogy’s army of orcs.
“When you think about it, in the original Lord of the Rings films, Peter created MASSIVE, which was a program which allowed 1000s of orcs to all have their own individual mindset,” Serkis said. “So that is a brilliant example of an incredible use of AI. But we’re not creating AI shots in our movie, every shot is created in a traditional way. One of the things actually that I really wanted to do with this film was to bring back all of the great filmmaking skills, from miniatures to prosthetics and marry them up, because that’s my taste. I like it when you mix up different filmmaking techniques.”
The Hunt for Gollum filming has now completed its first week of filming in New Zealand, with McKellen and Wood joined by Lee Pace reprising his character of elven king Thranduil from Jackson’s The Hobbit film trilogy. Anya Taylor-Joy has meanwhile joined the cast as new elven character, Seren.
One character who won’t need de-aging via AI is Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn, however — since the role has been recast. With Mortensen apparently declining to participate, Fifty Shades of Grey actor Jamie Dornan will now take on the Ranger’s role.
“I’m leaving him to it,” The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson said previously, regarding Serkis taking the helm. “I’m there to help if I can help, if I can be of assistance at certain times, I’m there. But I’m giving him as much freedom as I can, because giving Andy freedom to make that movie will result in the best possible film.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is due to land in theaters on December 17, 2027. It will be followed by The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, the film now being co-written by Stephen Colbert, which will adapt unseen elements from Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring novel, told via flashback.
Image credit: New Line Cinema
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
