The wait is over.
Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema revealed Thursday that Andy Serkis’ The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will open in theaters on Dec. 17, 2027. So far, it has the lucrative year-end corridor to itself, but that’s sure to change as other studios fill in their calendars.
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens — the Oscar-winning team behind the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies — are reuniting to produce two new films from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth for the Warners-owned New Line. Zane Weiner is also producing.
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Andy Serkis will both direct Gollum and star in the titular role Walsh and Boyens are penning the screenplay alongside Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou. The director of the second film has yet to be announced.
Fans of the Evil Dead franchise also got good news on Thursday. In a twinned announcement, New Line announced that the next installment in the supernatural horror series is officially a go following the smash success of Evil Dead Rise, which scared up north of $147 million in global box ticket sales in 2023, not adjusted for inflation.
New Line will co-finance the newest installment pic with Sony Pictures and has tapped Souheila Yacoub to star. It will open in theaters in North America on July 24, 2026. Yacoub is repped by Sugar23.
The film will be produced by longtime franchise regular Rob Tapert and series creator and horror icon Sam Raimi. Romel Adam, Jose Canas, and Lee Cronin will exec produce alongside cult legend “Ash” Bruce Campbell.
Warners will handle domestic distribution duties, while Sony will be in charge of overseas, save for select markets. Canal Plus will distributing in the UK, and Metropolitan in France.
In a third dating announcement, Warners has set Oct. 23, 2026 global release date for M. Night Shyamalan’s Remain. Jake Gyllenhaal is set to star in the supernatural romantic thriller alongside Phoebe Dynevor and Ashley Walters, based on an original story co-created in an unprecedented collaboration between Shyamalan and prolific bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks.
Shyamalan and Sparks are independently writing a screenplay and a novel, respectively, based on the same original love story. Sparks’ novel, also titled Remain, will hit shelves Oct. 7, 2025.
Remain producers include Shyamalan and Ashwin Rajan through their Blinding Edge Pictures, alongside Marc Bienstock and Sparks’ longtime producing partner Theresa Park, who will take an exec producing credit on the movie.
