Peter Jackson Compares The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker: 'You Have to Get Inside His Head'

Peter Jackson has compared The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, saying the movie volition “get inside” the character’s caput and archer the communicative from an interior perspective.

The Hunt for Gollum, directed by Gollum histrion Andy Serkis, acts arsenic a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, and sees Aragorn, tasked by Gandalf, tracking Gollum for years to forestall Sauron from learning astir the One Ring.

Speaking to IndieWire, Jackson said inspiration came from 2019’s Joker, which focuses connected Arthur Fleck transforming from a neglected, mentally sick antheral into a violent, carefree cause of chaos who rejects each societal, moral, and governmental structures — and sparks a convulsive countercultural gyration successful the process.

“We were reasoning astir the archetypal Joker film, the 1 with Joaquin Phoenix,” Jackson said. “The mode that explored the Joker’s science portion it was telling a story. We’ve got the communicative that’s successful the appendices, and we’ll archer that story, but we’ll archer it from an interior Gollum perspective. You’re taking written things by Tolkien and filming them from a definite POV, and that means you person to get wrong his head. I’ve got nary peculiar tendency to get wrong Gollum’s head. Andy Serkis tin bash that himself.”

Jackson has explained wherefore he’s not directed The Hunt for Gollum, preferring Serkis to pb the complaint instead. "I could person directed it but I conscionable thought, 'I've done it,'" Jackson told Variety, referencing his enactment connected the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies.

"And it's not due to the fact that of maine that I thought, 'I've done it,'" Jackson continued. "I thought it would beryllium much interesting... [if] Gollum himself, Andy Serkis, directed it. Because the movie is beauteous overmuch an interior communicative astir Gollum's science and addiction.

"It's a precise idiosyncratic communicative to Gollum, the character, and I thought that Andy knows this feline amended than anybody. So I really didn't truly deliberation overmuch of maine astatine all. I thought the astir breathtaking mentation of this movie is if Andy Serkis makes it due to the fact that he's going to enactment Gollum's science connected surface similar you can't imagine."

Jackson reiterated this to IndieWire, saying: “I thought the movie would beryllium much absorbing if Andy did it. I honestly, genuinely judge that if it’s a movie astir Gollum’s addiction and interior struggles, Andy would marque a overmuch much absorbing movie than me. If I thought I’d bash a amended film, I’d bash it. But I thought, there’s a feline that’s going to marque a truly absorbing movie present and it’s not me.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum hits theaters connected December 17, 2027. The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, co-written by Stephen Colbert, follows and volition accommodate unseen elements from Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring caller via flashback.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].