Recently, Sir Ian McKellen was interviewed on a BBC Radio 2 show where he was asked about whether it would irritate him to see someone else play the role of Gandalf on Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings series. Instead of saying either “Yes” or “No,” McKellen answered, “What do you mean, another Gandalf?” A response that brought a lot of joy to a lot of people out there who remember his performance from The Lord of the Rings movies with fondness. Granted, McKellen followed up by stating that he hasn’t been asked about reprising his role as Gandalf before confirming his interest in doing so. As a result, while it remains to be seen whether Amazon will be interested or not, there seems to be a real chance that the Gandalf of the upcoming series will be the same as the Gandalf of The Lord of the Rings movies, which is welcome news indeed.
Is There a Chance That This Will Happen?
At this point in time, no one besides some of the people at Amazon, the Tolkien Estate, HarperCollins, and Warner Bros.’s New Line Cinema know what the upcoming series will be focused on save that it will be preceding the events of The Lord of the Rings. This is a shame because some of the things that are known about the Fourth Age sound rather interesting, but considering how little is known about the far-off period, this is the logical choice, not least because the Fourth Age would have fewer and fewer of the characters that The Lord of the Rings fans care about. Theoretically, events preceding The Lord of the Rings could mean The Silmarillion, but that seems improbable because the stories contained in that particular book are much too far from what most Lord of the Rings fans would be familiar with. As a result, the likeliest choice for Amazon’s series would be the events that led up to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which is known in sufficient detail to provide a basic framework on which to build while also letting the people behind the series bring back a lot of fan favorites.
Regardless, if this guess is correct, there would be no in-setting reason why McKellen couldn’t reprise his role as Gandalf, seeing as how he had a critical role in watching over the people of Middle Earth while the return of Sauron came closer and closer. Instead, the bigger problem would be whether Amazon and the other participants are interested in seeing him return, but unfortunately, there is no real way to tell what the relevant individuals are thinking at this point in time. As a result, Lord of the Rings fans who want to see McKellen return to reprise his role as Gandalf should make their thoughts heard while paying close attention to the latest news. Considering the sheer interest in what promises to be a massive effort on Amazon’s part, it seems probable that more will be said about the series at some point sooner rather than further in the future, if just to maintain a high level of fan interest.
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