Core Cast for The Hunt for Gollum Announced

As part of their CinemaCon presentation, Warner Bros. announced the core cast for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. CinemaCon is an annual convention for theater owners where the movie studios show them their plans for the next year.

Returning cast members include Andy Serkis reprising Gollum/Smeagol, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Lee Pace as Thranduil and Elijah Woods as Frodo. New cast members to the franchise are Jamie Dorman (The Fall, Fifty Shades of Grey) as Strider aka Aragorn, Leo Woodall (Nuremberg, The White Lotus) as Halvard, and Kate Winslet (Titanic) as Marigol.

The movie more or less will be set in between The Hobbit and Lord of the Ring films so re-casting was necessary as Viggo Mortensen at 67 playing his then 42 year old self would be difficult in body regardless of how much the mind might be willing, especially for a role that tends to participate heavily in action scenes. The characters of Halvard and Marigol seemed to be made up specifically for the movie but could be inspired from characters in the Appendices.