Lord of the Rings: Will Ian McKellen reprise Gandalf for Amazon’s Second Age TV series?

The 80-year-old national treasure played JRR Tolkien’s wizard across both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. But with Amazon’s TV series set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, could Sir Ian McKellen be reprising Gandalf? Certainly, the Maiar would be old enough, being thousands of years old. And a couple of years back Sir Ian expressed interest in returning as Gandalf.

Appearing on Graham Norton’s BBC Radio 2 show at the time, the host asked the actor: “Amazon [is] doing a TV series of Lord of the Rings. 

“Now, isn’t that annoying, that there’s going to be another Gandalf in town?” 

Sir Ian replied: “What do you mean, another Gandalf? I haven’t said yes because I haven’t been asked.

“But are you suggesting that someone else is going to play it?

“Gandalf is over 7000 years old, so I’m not too old [yet].”

But while this may excite Lord of the Rings movie fans, those who know their Tolkien will remember that Gandalf wasn’t in Middle Earth during the Second Age.

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Gandalf was one of the five Istari sent to Middle Earth in the Third Age by the Valar – the beings who shaped and ruled the world from the Western continent of Aman.

The wizards Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast and the Blue Wizards travelled to assist Middle Earth against Sauron in his rise to power.

Nevertheless, the Blue Wizards may have arrived much earlier, so perhaps Sir Ian could play one of them?

Meanwhile, Gimli star John Rhys-Davies exclusively clarified his previous slamming of the Lord of the Rings TV show to Express.co.uk.

In 2017, the 75-year-old called it “a disgrace”, adding, “I mean, poor Tolkien must be spinning in his grave.”

But now in a new interview, Rhys-Davies claims that he “misspoke”, not realising that Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series would not be another adaptation of Tolkien’s trilogy, but set in another time and place in Middle Earth.

He said: “I misspoke when I was asked because it was presented to me as ‘what do you think of this remake of Lord of the Rings?’ and I shot from the hip and I misspoke.

“It isn’t really about that at all.

“There are so many other histories attached to it and its the pre-history and the pre-setting of Middle Earth that Amazon is going to be doing and I wish them well for it.

“I think a great storyteller’s stories should all be told if they will hold up.”