to update: The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum has resurfaced online after Warner Bros. released the film. A copyright strike was filed against the 15-year-old video a day after a movie of the same name was announced.
Available to watch Youtube Again, The Hunt for Gollum was initially removed because “[contained] Content from Warner Bros. Entertainment [had] It has been blocked on copyright grounds.” But the fan film remained offline for less than 24 hours.
Warner Bros. has not released it. Yet to make a statement on the matter, the video itself contains no reference to the brief takedown.
“It seems like today’s fan action (many articles) helped get the movie back on YouTube,” Adrian Webster, who played Aragorn in the fan film The Hunt for Gollum, tells IGN via email. “It’s nice to know there’s some love for what we’ve made.”
“We’re excited to see the film actually brought back,” adds Chris Bouchard, who directed The Hunt for Gollum. “It might have been an automatic copyright block for the same title. It’s not entirely clear. Anyway, we’re glad it’s back online now.”
Original story: After announcing The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum as a Peter Jackson-produced film set for release in 2026, Warner Bros. A copyright strike against a fan film of the same name even though it has been streaming on YouTube for 15 years.
The Hunt for Gollum was announced yesterday, May 9, 2024, as a new Lord of the Rings film starring and directed by original Gollum actor Andy Serkis. But the name itself was familiar to longtime fans of the franchise who watched Independent Online Cinema’s 2009 fan film, which had 13.6 million views on Youtube Before being taken offline.
However, visiting the movie page now displays a “Video not available” screen. “This video contains content from Warner Bros. Entertainment, which has blocked it on copyright grounds,” the page reads.
So Lord of the Rings fans have had to balance excitement for the new movie with frustration that Warner Bros. is feeling. Because she took something from society too.
“This is so weak,” said Delicious_Series3869 on A Reddit Share Discussion Removal. “These greedy bastards can’t help but save every penny, like Smaug. The video has already had 13 million views, and has been existing peacefully all these years.” IGN asked Warner Bros. comment.
Before the film was taken down, the team behind The Hunt for Gollum was positive about Warner Bros.’ release. Next movie. In an email with IGN sent before the video was removed from YouTube, Chris Bouchard, the director of the fan film, called it “very exciting news.”
“I think with full CG Gollum, the story has the potential to be much broader than what we could achieve with Gollum talking in a sack for most of it,” Bouchard told us. “After all, we could only manage one full CGI shot of Gollum on our budget (the final shot of the short!).”
Adrian Webster, who played Aragorn in the short, also expressed his enthusiasm for the film in an email to IGN, saying he would return for the big screen version “if I think there’s love for me to do it; either from the fanbase or the team at Warner.”
“Maybe if you’re lucky enough to meet them, that could be the starting point,” he said. “Then, it’s the character…Where is Aragorn at this moment? How can we workshop that? My personal journey took me away from acting shortly after making the film; but there are certain things in life you can’t say no to. Maybe It’s as Tolkien wrote: Not all who wander are lost.
The Hunt for Gollum is the first of two new Lord of the Rings live-action films. When announcing the new film, the CEO of Warner Bros. said: David Zaslav says the franchise is “largely underutilized” and that his company is “working hard to fix that”.
Adaptations of author J. R. R. Tolkien’s original work have become popular and heavy hitters across the entire entertainment world. Amazon continued The Lord of the Rings series with its TV show The Rings of Power, the first season of which was released in 2022 on Prime Video. Season 2 was announced before the release of Season 1, and before the premiere of Season 2, Season 3 was also confirmed.
The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim is an upcoming animated film that tells the story of Helm’s Deep Castle and the Great King of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand. It will premiere on December 13, 2024.
Video game adaptations are back in full swing as well, despite the disastrous 2023 launch of Gollum. Franchise owner Embracer Group mirrored Zaslav’s comments by saying it needs to “exploit Lord of the Rings in a very significant way” by turning it into “one of the biggest Games in the world.
Games currently in development include Amazon Games’ online multiplayer game The Lord of the Rings, which was in early development as of May 2023, and a cozy life simulator called Tales of the Shire.
Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance reporter at IGN. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day long.
“Freelance entrepreneur. Communicator. Gamer. Explorer. Pop culture practitioner.”
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