Ian McKellen Doesn't Like the Idea of Anyone Else Playing Gandalf in Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum

Gandalf actor Ian McKellen doesn't like the idea of anyone else playing the iconic wizard in the upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and has revealed he's expecting a script in 2025.

McKellen said on This Morning that he was eager to return to The Lord of the Rings after portraying Gandalf in both the original trilogy and The Hobbit films, though a holiday to New Zealand may be the main reason why.

"All I know is that they called me up and said these films were going to happen, that were mainly going to be about Gollum," McKellen said. "Andy Serkis, who played Gollum, is going to direct. And there would be a script arriving sometime in the new year, that's next year, and then I'll judge whether I want to go back.

"But I would. I would love to go back to New Zealand, number one. I also don't like the idea of anybody else playing Gandalf."

McKellen has already been asked to return, and the 85-year-old actor previously said he'd be eager to so long as age didn't catch up to him. It now seems certain that Gandalf will star in the film, though as McKellen notes, there still isn't a script put together. The Hunt for Gollum was announced on May 9, 2024 when an early version was being worked on, but star Andy Serkis said discussions only began around October 2023.

"They were saying, ‘Andy, we really want to reinvigorate Middle-earth. There are so many fresh stories that we want to get involved with. We want to launch this new wave by taking us back into the world of Gollum.' They asked me to direct," Serkis said in June. "This is a dream come true, to work with the people I love working with in a country I adore working in."

Comments about reinvigorating Middle-earth are a tad more sentimental than the language used by those who own the Lord of the Rings franchise. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said, for example, said The Lord of the Rings is a "largely underused" franchise that his company is "hard at work fixing." CEO of The Lord of the Rings owner Embracer Group Lars Wingefors, meanwhile, said the company needs to be "exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion" on the video game front.

Regardless, 65-year-old Aragorn actor Viggo Mortensen is also open to returning but said he'd only do so if it makes sense for him and his character. Legolas actor Orlando Bloom does want to return but doesn't know how it would work since his elven character hardly ages, unlike his mortal self.

The Lord of the Rings was once a standalone trilogy but the canonical film universe is slowly but surely expanding, first through The Hobbit Trilogy and now through several other films and TV shows.

Amazon has continued the franchise with its The Rings of Power TV show, Season 1 of which released in 2022 on Prime Video. Season 2 kicked off in August and, in February 2024, showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne extended their partnership with Amazon and signed a new three-year deal with the company to kick off early work on Season 3.

Elsewhere in Tolkien's world sits The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an animated film set to tell the story behind the fortress of Helm's Deep and the mighty King of Rohan Helm Hammerhand when it premieres on December 13, 2024.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.