Kate Winslet might be joining Hunt For Gollum in mysterious role that we hope is Girl Gollum

We’re going to keep praying to Eru Ilúvatar, hoping that’s the idea behind a cryptic Deadline report, which announced Kate Winslet will star as the “female lead” of Andy Serkis’ upcoming Lord Of The Rings fan fiction, The Hunt For Gollum. Deadline’s sources note that Winslet will be “uprooting her family” to shoot the film in New Zealand, where she shot her breakout, Heavenly Creatures, with Peter Jackson, and broke world records for holding her breath while training for Avatar. But since this movie is working off an even flimsier Tolkienian mythos than Rings Of Power, might we suggest introducing Gollum’s girlfriend, Girl Gollum (Gollumette?), as played by Kate Winslet. 

Hunt For Gollum is serving as a Lord Of The Rings legacy prequel, with some of the cast of the original trilogy returning for another jaunt around Middle-earth. Elijah Wood is back as Frodo Baggins, as are Serkis’ Gollum and Ian McKellen’s Gandalf. The film seems to take place between The Hobbit and The Fellowship Of The Ring, following Aragorn and Gandalf as they attempt to track down Gollum before Sauron does. The ending is a forgone conclusion since Fellowship Of The Ring opens with Gollum in Sauron’s clutches, but apparently Warner Bros. thinks there’s enough room for two movies in a story Jackson previously summed up in about 30 seconds. However, whether Viggo Mortensen will return as Aragorn remains very much an open question. He was in his early 40s playing the 87-year-old Aragorn, but the now-68-year-old actor is still “open” to returning. He just isn’t sure “how technically” they would “pull it off.” A 68-year-old man playing an 80-year-old Half-elven would require some serious de-aging. Still, we know how they could pull it. Four words: “Kate Winslet as Aragorn.”