Sir Ian McKellen dropped a stinker on the British talkshow This Morning earlier in the week so putrid that even Gollum himself might steer clear of it. The 85-year-old star of the Lord of the Rings movies was being asked about a return to Middle-earth in The Hunt for Gollum, which will see Peter Jackson (this time as producer) and Andy Serkis (director, and Gollum) heading back to JRR Tolkien’s high fantasy classic more than two decades after the former completed 2003’s Oscar-winning The Return of the King.

“There’ll be a script arriving sometime in the new year, and I’ll judge whether I want to go back,” laughed McKellen. “I would. I would love to go back to New Zealand, number one. And also, I don’t like the idea of anyone else playing Gandalf.”

But then he added: “I’m told it’s two films. I probably shouldn’t be saying that. But I haven’t read the script. So, I don’t know if it is.”

Is McKellen winding us up? For those who haven’t been keeping a close eye on The Hunt for Gollum, which was announced in May, it’s possible this doesn’t sound all that weird. After all, Jackson made trilogies out of both The Lord of the Rings (1,000 pages +) and the far more breezy, 300-page Hobbit.

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And here lies the problem with The Hunt for Gollum, and in particular the prospect of it being stretched to two movies. It’s not a book at all, in fact it’s barely a few hundred words of high-end Gandalf-speak at the Council of Elrond, in Rivendell, before the quest to destroy the ring begins a-proper (though there are some background details in the Lord of the Rings’ appendices and Tolkien’s posthumously assembled Unfinished Tales). Yes, we’re told that Aragorn’s search for the wretched former ring-bearer, at the behest of the grey wizard, took many years. But while the future King of Gondor’s adventures in the period are well-documented in Tolkien’s writings, he definitely did not spend all this time trudging through murky pools in search of Middle-earth’s equivalent of the guy in the park who’s always talking to pigeons.

Fair enough, Gollum is essentially Middle-earth’s hide-and-seek champion, a creature with the ability to vanish into a rock crevice like a feral cat who owes you rent money. Tracking him would be like trying to follow lembas breadcrumbs through a hurricane on the peaks of the Misty Mountains, or chasing a hyperactive squirrel hopped up on pipeweed through Fangorn Forest. But two (probably two-hour plus) movies? Perhaps we’ll get 20 minutes of Aragorn thoughtfully stroking his chin while staring at some vague footprints, or a 45-minute subplot where Gandalf takes a quick detour to the Prancing Pony for a not-so-swift half or eight. Or maybe there will be huge detours away from the dead marshes in which Strider gets involved in something else entirely, just for a bit of a break from the tedium.

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The only issue here, of course, is that Bloom will be approaching 50 when this thing eventually gets made, but will be appearing as a younger version of the character he played 20-plus years ago. But don’t panic, the film-makers are reportedly planning to overcome such issues – elves are supposed to be immortal, but they do not age backwards – via the magic of artificial intelligence. “I did speak to Andy [Serkis] and he did say they were thinking about how to do things,” Bloom told Variety. “I was like, ‘How would that even work?’ And he was like, ‘Well, AI!’”

No doubt 65-year-old Viggo Mortensen will also be pricking up his ears at this news.