Peter Jackson’s six-film Middle-earth saga’s been back in the headlines recently now that The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies have been remastered and released in 4K, but it feels like a very long time since we’ve gotten any updates about Amazon’s hotly-anticipated TV series set in the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The project is the single biggest small screen effort ever given the green light, with the streaming service shelling out $250 million just for the rights before committing to a five-season arc that’ll run up a billion dollars in production costs. Filming kicked off in February this year, but was shut down a month later due to the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Shooting recommenced at the end of September, though, and the The Lord of the Rings is still scheduled to debut before the conclusion of 2021. The movies were well known for featuring a sprawling ensemble, of course, and the latest spin on the beloved source material looks to be following suit after another 20 cast members were recruited for the series.
Here’s the full list:
- Cynthia Addai-Robinson
- Maxim Baldry
- Ian Blackburn
- Kip Chapman
- Anthony Crum
- Maxine Cunliffe
- Trystan Gravelle
- Sir Lenny Henry
- Thusitha Jayasundera
- Fabian McCallum
- Simon Merrells
- Geoff Morrell
- Peter Mullan
- Lloyd Owen
- Augustus Prew
- Peter Tait
- Alex Tarrant
- Leon Wadham
- Benjamin Walker
- Sara Zwangobani
That’s definitely an interesting mix of familiar and unknown names, with Peter Mullan arguably the most recognizable of the lot, and the gruff Scotsman is exactly the sort of grizzled character actor who fits comfortably into Middle-earth. He’s no stranger to big budget fantasy, either, having previously appeared in the Harry Potter franchise, HBO’s Westworld and Netflix’s Cursed.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy remains an incredible cinematic achievement, while The Hobbit films felt completely unnecessary and fell well short in terms of quality, but it’d be fair to say that fans would be happy enough if Amazon even managed to land somewhere in the middle with the TV show.
