Fan-made film The Hunt For Gollum an internet hit

Attesting to the popularity and inspiration created by fan-made films, a Lord of the Rings-themed fan-produced short titled The Hunt for Gollum premiered online Sunday, and within 24 hours had over 250,000 views, with nearly all comments giving the film a thumbs up. According to Sci-Fi Wire, the premiere was so successful that it crashed the film’s web servers for a short time.

Director and executive producer Chris Bouchard, spoke to SCI FI Wire by phone from England, and explained,

“The Web server got completely overwhelmed by all the traffic. We got it back online quite late that night. I think everybody saw the release and went on at the same time. It was the number of requests it couldn’t handle. It’s quite cool! We had no idea how many people would watch it.”

Bouchard adapted the screenplay from an incident discussed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s original trilogy. The story follows the Heir of Isildur, the greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth, as he sets out to find the creature Gollum. The creature must be found to discover the truth about the Ring, and to protect the future Ringbearer.

The Hunt for Gollum also had its world theatrical premiere on Sunday at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival and a U.S. premiere later that same day in Yuma, Arizona, thanks to two Yuma residents who worked on the sound and visual effects.

Check out the trailer for the popular fan film below.

CLICK HERE to check out the complete film on the now restored server based at Amazon’s S3 Cloud.