Following the conclusion of Game of Thrones, one that admittedly split the fans right down the middle, there’s a huge gap in the market for fantasy TV. Netflix have stepped up in a big way, with The Witcher becoming the most popular show on the planet, the recently-released Warrior Nun generating huge buzz and female-driven Arthurian tale Cursed arriving next week, but their rivals over at Amazon have the one series that could rule them all.
Having shelled out $250 million to acquire the small screen rights and then set aside a further billion dollars towards a five-season commitment, the upcoming Lord of the Rings show was already the most expensive in history before a single frame had even been shot. Shooting kicked off in February, but was soon halted due to the Coronavirus pandemic, although New Zealand has recently opened its doors again to allow major productions to resume.
We know that the story is set to take place during the Second Age of Middle-Earth, which places it long before the events depicted in Peter Jackson’s acclaimed trilogy, but we’ve now heard from our sources that the small screen Lord of the Rings will eventually feature several characters and plot points seen in the movies, albeit with some tweaks and changes to make them fit into the show.
According to our intel – which comes from the same sources that told us Ahsoka Tano would be appearing in the second season of The Mandalorian and National Treasure 3 is in the works, both of which were correct – future seasons of the series will eventually catch up to the movies and Amazon are keen to use aspects of the mythology that fans are more familiar with in order to tie things closer together.
The show will also reportedly feature some big time jumps, which will allow them to pull it all off without affecting their own narrative, and the current plan is for the plot of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to eventually have some sort of effect on the TV series. It’s unclear which characters or events from the films we may see, but Tolkien’s lore is often impenetrably dense and while Amazon shouldn’t rely too heavy on iconography that people already know, it still makes sense for them to call back to the most famous adaptation of the source material to market their massive investment.
