Is Warner Bros’ next ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie inspired by a YouTube fan film?

Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis are planning to tell the story of The Hunt For Gollum, but a YouTube fan film may have beaten them to the punch. As Warner Bros. announced its latest addition to the Lord of the Rings franchise, it found itself in a rights dispute with an independent project that also uses the “Hunt for Gollum” title.

On May 9, Warner Bros. announced a pair of Lord of the Rings anthology films that will tell standalone stories set in Middle Earth. The Hunt for Gollum, tentatively due out in 2026, will be the first of those projects. It will feature the involvement of the original Lord of the Rings director (Jackson) and the performer who portrayed Gollum in those films (Serkis).

There’s just one problem with this plan: A film called The Hunt For Gollum already exists. It arrived 15 years ago, back when fan films thrived on platforms like YouTube. The Hunt For Gollum exemplified its genre in several ways: The 39-minute project directed by Chris Bouchard had a small budget but earned praise for its assured performances and its passionate representation of its source material. It has received more than 13 million views 

When it comes to unlicensed fan films, Warner Bros. has typically taken a hard line. The Hunt For Gollum was allowed to exist on YouTube for more than a decade, but in the wake of the latest announcement, the fan film was hit with a copyright claim. It then went offline for several hours.

As Lord of the Rings fans criticized the decision to take down the fan film, Warner Bros. reversed course. A representative for the studio told The Hollywood Reporter that the initial copyright claim had been filed in error. The Hunt For Gollum was soon restored on YouTube.

Legal disputes between studios and fans are nothing new, but Warner Bros’ decision to reimagine a fan project as an official release is an intriguing choice. We’ll have to wait until 2026 to learn whether Jackson and Serkis will take any inspiration from the Hunt For Gollum that came before them.