The Black Rider' Officially Sets Summer 2026 Release

The Lord of the Rings fans are in for a big year in 2026 with the return of the Prime Video original series, The Rings of Power. Prime Video confirmed last year that production on the third season had wrapped filming, and the studio doubled down on the show by announcing a November 11 premiere date for Season 3. The Lord of the Rings fans are also gearing up for a return to theaters next year with The Hunt for Gollum, which is coming to the big screen on December 18, 2027, the same day as Avengers: Secret Wars. Lord of the Rings fans were dealt a blow not long ago when it was confirmed that Viggo Mortensen would not reprise his role as Aragorn in the film — Jamie Dornan will play the character instead.

One part of The Lord of the Rings franchise that has helped it become the biggest fantasy franchise in the world — it’s not particularly close — are the various creatures that occupy the movies and TV shows. Whether it’s watching Aragorn run down a pack of Orcs, or seeing Gandalf fly into battle on a Giant Eagle, there are aspects of large-scale Lord of the Rings battles that you can’t get from any other franchise. One of the more harrowing creatures in The Lord of the Rings are the Nazgul, or the Ringwraiths, who are in constant pursuit of the Fellowship throughout the original trilogy. Sideshow Collectibles has announced a new Nazgul art print known as The Black Rider, is set to officially launch this summer at a currently unspecified date. The print comes in various sizes that retail from $85 to $365.

Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz
Which Lord of the Rings
Race Do You Belong To?
Hobbit · Elf · Dwarf · Man · Orc

Middle-earth is home to many peoples — the courageous, the ancient, the stubborn, the ambitious, and the wretched. Ten questions will determine which race truly claims your soul. The answer may surprise you. Or it may confirm what you already suspected.

🌿Hobbit

🌟Elf

⚒️Dwarf

⚔️Man

💀Orc

What does your ideal day look like?
How we rest reveals as much as how we fight.

How do you feel about the passing of time?
Our relationship with mortality shapes everything we value.

Danger is approaching. Your first instinct is to:
Fight, flight, or something in between — it’s more revealing than you’d think.

You stumble upon a great treasure. What do you feel?
What we desire — and what we do about it — is the true test.

How important is community and belonging to you?
No race of Middle-earth is truly alone — but some prefer it that way.

How ambitious are you, honestly?
Ambition is neither virtue nor vice — it depends entirely on what you want.

Where do you feel most at home in the natural world?
Middle-earth is vast — and every race has its place within it.

What kind of strength do you most respect?
Every race defines strength differently — and they’re all at least a little right.

What do you want to leave behind when you’re gone?
Legacy is the story we tell ourselves about why any of this matters.

Be honest — what do you actually want most out of life?
The truest question always comes last.

Middle-earth Has Spoken
You Belong To…

The race that claimed the most of your answers is your true kin. If two tied, both are shown — you walk between worlds.

◆ A TIE — YOU WALK BETWEEN TWO RACES ◆

🌿

Your Race

The Hobbits

You are, at your core, a creature of comfort, community, and quiet joy — and there is nothing small about that. Hobbits are proof that heroism does not require ambition, that the bravest heart can beat inside the most unassuming chest. You value good food, warm hearths, close friends, and a world that stays largely untroubled by dark lords and quests. When adventure does find you — and it will — you rise to it not because you sought it, but because the people you love needed you to. That is not ordinary. That is the rarest kind of courage in all of Middle-earth.

🌟

Your Race

The Elves

Ancient, graceful, and carrying a weight of memory most mortals cannot fathom, you are one of the Elves. You see the world in its fullness — its beauty, its impermanence, the unbearable ache of watching everything you love eventually fade. You pursue perfection not from pride, but because excellence is how you honour the time you have been given. Others may see you as remote or melancholy. They are not wrong, exactly. But they mistake depth for distance. You feel everything — which is precisely why you have learned to carry it so quietly.

⚒️

Your Race

The Dwarves

Stubborn, proud, fiercely loyal, and possessed of a work ethic that would exhaust most other races before breakfast — you are Dwarf-kind through and through. You do not ask for approval and you do not offer it cheaply. Your loyalty, once given, is given for life. Your grudges last longer. You love deeply and defend ferociously, and the things you build — with your hands, with your sweat, with generations of accumulated craft — are made to last. Not for glory. Because anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and you have never once done anything by half measures.

⚔️

Your Race

The Race of Men

Mortal, ambitious, flawed, and magnificent — you belong to the most complicated race in Middle-earth, and that complexity is your greatest strength. Men are capable of cowardice and extraordinary bravery, of cruelty and breathtaking sacrifice, sometimes within the same breath. You feel the urgency of your finite years, and it drives you. You want to matter. You want to leave something behind. You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you. Tolkien called mortality the Gift of Men — not a curse, but a fire that burns bright precisely because it does not burn forever. That fire is you.

💀

Your Race

The Orcs

Brutal, survivalist, and contemptuous of anything that can’t defend itself — you answered with the instincts of an Orc, and there is a certain savage honesty in that. You do not dress up your desires in polite language or pretend you want things you don’t. You want power, survival, and to never be at the bottom of any hierarchy ever again. Orcs are not evil by nature — they were made from something that was once good, and broken into this shape by forces they did not choose. What remains is fierce, territorial, and deeply aware that the world is not kind. You’ve made your peace with that. The question is what you do with it.

Who Else Stars in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’?

In addition to Jamie Dornan as Aragorn, the rest of the ensemble cast for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum includes Lee Pace as Thranduil, Leo Woodall as Halvard, Andy Serkis as Gollum, Kate Winslet as Marigol, Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, and Ian McKellen as Gandalf. The film will be set between the events of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, and it will follow Aragorn as a young ranger while he searches for Gollum to keep the ring out of Sauron’s hand. Andy Serkis is also directing The Hunt for Gollum with a script from Philippa Boyens, Phoebe Gittins, Arty Papageorgiou, and Peter Jackson, who also produces.

Stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of The Lord of the Rings franchise.

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Release Date: December 17, 2027
Writers: Arty Papageorgiou, Phoebe Gittins, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, J.R.R. Tolkien
Franchise(s): The Lord of the Rings