So I had a few hours to kill this afternoon while waiting on my kids’’ activities and went down some YouTube, Reddit,and blog rabbit holes. Lot of analysis of what WB said about Jackson and LOTR in the earnings call, as well as WB’s financials (which are shit). The thinking is that WB is going back to the well with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (the HBOMax series) and a few other things to make a bunch of money in the next 4-5 years, and they are willing to spend money to make money.
From what’s been said, Jackson and Co. have complete creative freedom, and the first movie is more about Aragorn (basically prequel to the LOTR trilogy) and pulling a ton of stuff out of the LOTR appendixes (as mentioned earlier). Legolas maybe tied in as well as Gandalf (who is central to the reason why Gollum was being hunted by Aragorn). Aragorn is a fan favorite so it makes sense. We might also see some of the fights that happened outside of the Shire between various baddies looking to attack the Shire versus the Rangers/Dúnedain, etc. who were guarding the Shire.
it’s not going to generate a lot of “new” stuff, but instead builds up the backstory of Gandalf, Legolas, and Aragorn (and Gollum and Bilbo) and lays out the journey of the ring up through Bilbo obtaining it, and it’s all out of the LOTR appendixes.
There’s also a lot of talk that WB may have worked out a deal with Amazon and Embracer for Jackson to have access to The Silmarillion going forward, including the silmaril jewels and some of the elf stuff for future movies or series beyond these first two movies. Embracer and WB especially want to make a lot of money fast.
Here’s a pretty good video just talking about the hunt for Gollum