Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series has been much-anticipated for several years now, and we’ve recently been getting more information about the show, including what may or may not end up in episodes. However, we’ve just received a first photo from the premiere episode, and a release date for The Lord of the Rings, which will officially land on streaming on September 2nd, 2022.
In terms of the image, available below, we can see a classic landscape from Tolkien’s work, and an as-yet-unrevealed character. While it’s not immediately clear what’s being depicted, fans on Twitter are discussing whether it’s Gondor in the Second Age, or Valinor in the First Age, based on the Two Trees, with the figure looking out from Tirion in the valley of Calacirya. In addition, some people are claiming that the scene is a flashback with Galadriel.
Given that Amazon are splashing out $465 million on the debut season of The Lord of the Rings, we’d expect the production values in the finished product to be pretty spectacular. We know that the story will take place during the Second Age, which still works with the suggestion that the new still is a memory, and that the events covered will be thousands of years before The Hobbit and the existing Rings movies.
With just over a year to go until we finally get to watch the Tolkien adaptation, various reports have emerged suggesting that we’ll be seeing material from The Silmarillion, and that Sauron won’t be turning up, at least not for the initial run of instalments. Amazon have committed to five seasons of content for a budget of around $1 billion, likely now to be even higher if they’re already throwing more than $400 million at the first year alone, making The Lord of the Rings the most expensive television show of all time.
