Amazon to Make “The Lord of the Rings” TV Series
The journey through Middle-earth continues…
Amazon has announced that it will be producing a multi-season, television adaptation based off of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings book series.
The adaptation will cover events preceding the series’ first book, The Fellowship of the Ring. Users of the website Reddit have argued that the television adaptation should be considered less of a Lord of the Rings series, and more of a Middle-earth series, as the adaptation will likely take inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s other books, such as The Silmarillion. Both are set in the overarching, high fantasy setting that is Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but remain separate works.
Tolkien film-adaptations, such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie trilogies directed by Peter Jackson, have received countless nominations and awards since the release of the movie The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001. According to Amazon, the theatrical releases have accumulated over $6 billion gross worldwide.
Expanding on rich fantasy worlds has become a regular device for content creation on television platforms. For example, the show Game of Thrones recently wrapped up its seventh season and already has plans for several spin-off series.
Amazon has jumped on this trope by acquiring the rights to one of the most renowned fantasy settings of all time. And it seems that the Tolkien estate is excited about the expansion:
“We are delighted that Amazon, with its longstanding commitment to literature, is the home of the first-ever multi-season television series for The Lord of the Rings,” said Matt Galsor, a representative of the Tolkien estate, Amazon reported.
There’s a catch, however. Amazon doesn’t produce shows for cable. Their original content is available solely on Amazon Prime. Amazon has stated that the series will be released exclusively on its streaming services:
The upcoming Amazon Prime Original will be available for Prime members to stream and enjoy using the Amazon Prime Video app for TVs, connected devices including Amazon Fire TV, and mobile devices, or online with other Amazon Prime Originals online at Amazon.com/originals, at no additional cost to their membership.
So for die-hard Tolkien fans, the only way to view the new series will be to subscribe to the content through an Amazon Prime membership.
Currently, there is no known release date for the series. The show is also unavailable on the “Coming Soon” section of the Amazon Prime website, so it may be some time before the series is released.
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