Filming begins on The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum with Andy Serkis back as Gollum

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The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum director and star Andy Serkis has released a video showing his return to Middle-earth, as filming gets underway.

While not a full trailer, the behind-the-scenes video gives a peek at Serkis on set in mo-cap gear, back in character as Gollum. We also get a glimpse at the production's New Zealand location shoot — in a place that eagle-eyed fans may recognize.

"Here we go, onto the mocap stage for day one," Serkis says, strolling into Weta's motion capture studio. "What are we going to start with?" After being told they're starting with scene one, starring him, Serkis clambers on top of a nearby box and assumes a Gollum-like pose.

"And... action," Serkis growls, immediately sounding like Gollum again.

The video concludes with a drone shot of location filming in the New Zealand mountains. While it's hard to make out any details, the landscape in general may look familiar — as it's featured in a specific Lord of the Rings movie scene.

"For those who don't know, this filming location is where Frodo & Sam are climbing up the rock face in Two Towers opening scene... right before they meet Gollum!" noted Lord of the Rings fan RRworkshopstudio on YouTube. "I wonder what they'll show this time!"

Finally, the video notes The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum's December 17, 2027 release date and a hidden message written in Middle-earth runes. According to multiple fans on social media who have deciphered the text, it reads: "Something precious awaits," which sounds fitting.

The Hunt for Gollum will reunite Serkis with his fellow Lord of the Rings co-stars Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Elijah Wood as Frodo, while Lee Pace is reprising his character of elven king Thranduil from The Hobbit film trilogy. New additions to the cast include Fifty Shades of Grey actor Jamie Dornan, who takes over from Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie actress Anya Taylor-Joy, who will play a new "lethal elf" named Seren. Earlier this week, Taylor-Joy revealed she hadn't read The Lord of the Rings yet, but would be doing so soon .

Serkis hit the headlines this week when he discussed The Hunt for Gollum's use of AI to digitally de-age some of The Lord of the Rings' aging stars , who will need to look younger than they did 25 years ago in Fellowship of the Ring. "There’s a little bit of de-aging for some of the characters and machine learning is part of the process," Serkis said.

The Hunt for Gollum sees numerous characters seeking Serkis' character in order to discover the location of the One Ring. This time period is briefly shown during Fellowship's prologue, and covered just as briefly in Tolkien's original writings.

"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."

Image credit: YouTube.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social