Following The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy, Warner Bros. has been making waves in an effort to really milk Tolkien's fantasy universe. This is already culminating in an anime project called The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim this December, and a project called The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum in 2026, which will see Andy Serkis in the director's chair and back as the ugly little monster.
Speaking about that latter project, there were reports that suggested Warner Bros. would somehow split this minor part of Middle-earth lore (the part where Gandalf leaves the Shire and Aragorn goes hunting for Gollum with the Orcs beating him to it, a portion that we saw referenced for a few seconds in The Fellowship of the Ring and giving us the "Baggins! Shire!" line) into two films, but thankfully this doesn't seem to be accurate.
Empire has now published a report where it states that The Hunt for Gollum will be one film and that Warner Bros. is currently in the process of developing a second and different live-action The Lord of the Rings film too. In an interview with screenwriter Philippa Boyens, it's noted:
"I can tell you definitively it isn't two films! That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we've begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being The Hunt For Gollum, the second one still to be confirmed."
Boyens does also tease a little more about The Hunt for Gollum, adding: "It's quite an intense story, which falls after the birthday party of Bilbo and before the Mines Of Moria. It's a specific chunk of incredible untold story, told through the perspective of this incredible creature."
The idea that The Hunt for Gollum would be split into two parts largely came from comments from Ian McKellan who noted that it was set to be quite an expansive tale, but this seemed to have been crossed wires, something Boyens also explained: "We're playing around with a number of ideas, but most of those ideas do include Gandalf. So Gandalf would potentially return for two live-action films."
Does even more live-action The Lord of the Rings sound exciting to you?