The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 Teaser Trailer and Casting News

As part of the San Diego Comic-Con 2026, Prime Video has released the teaser trailer (below) for season 3 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. A breakdown of the teaser can be found here. As part of a panel, the studio revealed new additions to the cast. 

Simon Pegg (The Boys) will voice the Balrog. Quick reminder that the Balrog is basically a demi-god so intelligence is likely. Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan) as been cast as Thrain, the father of Thorin Oakenshield who was the lead Dwarf in The Hobbit trilogy.  Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things) will play Celeborn, the husband of Galadriel. Andrew Richardson (Ponies) will play Anarion, Isildur's brother, Zubin Varla (Andor) as the Ringwraith Khamûl the Easterling and Adam Young (Masters of the Air) as Marnûkh, a new Orc character for the series.

The Hunt for Gollum Begins Production

Filming has officially started for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum which is aiming for a December 17, 2027 release date. The occasion was marked by video below with film's director Andy Serkis also prepping to reprise his role as Gollum.

Serkis also spoke with Variety after a day of filming and answered a few questions. One of the questions was the use of AI in the film where he said "“Not at present, other than some of the de-aging. There’s a little bit of de-aging for some of the characters and machine learning is part of the process. When you think about it, in the original “The Lord of the Rings” films, Peter created MASSIVE, which was a program which allowed 1000s of orcs to all have their own individual mindset. So that is a brilliant example of an incredible use of AI. But we’re not creating AI shots in our movie, every shot is created in a traditional way. One of the things actually that I really wanted to do with this film was to bring back all of the great filmmaking skills, from miniatures to prosthetics and marry them up, because that’s my taste. I like it when you mix up different filmmaking techniques." 

He was asked who was being de-aged but he wouldn't provide an answer but safe to assume at least Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Elijah Wood (Frodo) considering the film expands on a period of time that occurred between two scenes in Fellowship of the Ring.

Anya Taylor-Joy Joins The Hunt for Gollum

The Warner Bros. Twitter/X account has officially revealed "Welcome to the hunt, Anya Taylor-Joy. The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum only in theaters 17 December 2027." with an image of her character Seren holding a bow. Nothing more was revealed. 

Deadline reports her role is "a Sindar Elf of the Woodland Realm, a trusted and lethal agent of King Thranduil (Lee Pace)." 

These are the same elves and king that Bilbo and the dwarves were in conflict with in the Hobbit trilogy. Anya Taylor-Joy was lead in The Queen's Gambit, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and voiced Princess Peach in The Super Mario movies.