WB is looking to bring back the Lord of the Rings franchise after War of the Rohirrim, and it’s been announced that there’s an Aragorn-centric series called The Hunt for Gollum. So far we only know that Andy Serkis will be taking on the director’s chair, but the big question is, “Who is going to play Aragorn?” As it turns out, the producers only want one person.
In a recent interview with The Playlist, writer Philippa Boyens confirmed that they are in talks with original actor Viggo Mortensen to see if he would want to return as the Gondorian heir. She says:
“Honestly, that’s entirely going to be up to Viggo, collaboratively and we are at a very early stage… I’ve spoken to Viggo, Andy [Serkis] has spoken to him, Peter [Jackson] has spoken to him, we’ve all spoken to each other and honestly, I cannot imagine anyone else playing Aragorn, but it will be completely and entirely up to Viggo.”
Apparently, the decision is ‘several, several months away’, and no script has been handed to Mortensen yet. If he does choose to reprise the role, there would be have to be some de-aging involved (Mortensen is already 66-years-old); but if they decide to recast, they still want Mortensen involved in some way in order to properly pass the torch to the next Aragorn.
If anything, they could probably use old Aragorn as a narrative device and have him narrate the story of his younger self—much like Ian Holm did for the Hobbit movies. There’s probably a lot of room to play around with old Aragorn, and maybe we can even see other older characters like Merry and Pippin who were buried beside Aragorn in Gondor.
So far, no release date has been set for Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, but it’s expected to hit theatres in 2026.
