The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been in development for at least five years, with Amazon funneling roughly half a billion dollars into their most ambitious venture into the world of speculative fiction yet. That’s more than a television series like Game of Thrones had for its first four seasons combined, which is why, as far as production values are concerned, expectations are soaring through the sky for this latest take on the world of Middle-earth.
If you were to ask the producers, they’d tell you that The Rings of Power will definitely live up to the hype, but we’ve been disappointed too many times by adaptations of our favorite stories over the past few years to easily fall for that claim. Still, the people involved with the project seem to be pretty confident about their own work.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Wayne Che Yip, who’s helmed four episodes in season one, has teased the “breathtaking” scale of The Rings of Power again.
“Being on set was just breathtaking. We were there for weeks, but every day I’d notice a new detail I’d never seen before like graffiti etched into weathered stone or a small shrine. There was a whole wall made out of oyster shells. Every corner you’d turn, there was just so much storytelling.”
Che Yip’s most recent credit in the world of fantasy involves Amazon’s own The Wheel of Time series, where he served as the director on the third and fourth episodes, incidentally two of the highest rated ones. That, at the very least, implies showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have chosen their team wisely.
The fact that The Lord of the Rings is coming back to live-action after nearly a decade is an exciting occasion in and of itself, but the sheer scale that Amazon Studios producers seem to be hinting at here is also an intriguing facet of this new adaptation.
Fortunately, and after an excruciating wait, we’ll be able to judge the series for ourselves soon enough, as The Rings of Power is premiering in less than two months on Sep. 1.
