TV: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Amazon Prime Series

[Trap Jesus]

I kind of wonder about the level of interest in something like this. Obviously it's one of the most well-known literary/film properties of all time, and there are many huge fans of Tolkien's work in this universe outside of Frodo's journey, but I think when any casual viewer sees "Lord of the Rings", they're just thinking about the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy. If it's a 5 season series, I doubt they even touch that storyline. I think it's going to lead to a lot of people tuning in, saying "What the hell is this?" and tuning out.

The Hobbit films still did well at the box office, but it seemed like there was definitely some fatigue there. Just not sure scouring through all of Tolkien's appendices is going to justify this kind of budget.

 

[beowulf]

Crazy that they paid $250M for the rights and now it is being said the the show will cost over $1B....that's a big investment.

 

[Plural]

Crazy that they paid $250M for the rights and now it is being said the the show will cost over $1B....that's a big investment.

Yeah. I guess this is the make or break move for them.

 

[NyQuil]

The Hobbit films still did well at the box office, but it seemed like there was definitely some fatigue there. Just not sure scouring through all of Tolkien's appendices is going to justify this kind of budget.

They clearly didn't take the time and the care to craft the films in the same way as they did the originals.

And it is understandable to some degree, as they wanted to use Christopher Lee and Ian McKellan and they aren't exactly young actors.

I think they're trying to bank on it becoming the next Game of Thrones - but it's a big gamble because George R. R. Martin's saga was extremely well-received by fantasy fans and the source material is a lot more developed.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Rumor is the show will follow a young aragorn.

Feels like a missed opportunity if true. Would have liked to see it set in the first or second age.

 

[beowulf]

Rumor is the show will follow a young aragorn.

Feels like a missed opportunity if true. Would have liked to see it set in the first or second age.

This is what I also heard. I think they are playing it safer in having it based on a well known character that people who saw the movies but have never read any of the novels will be able to understand...

 

[Blender]

This is what I also heard. I think they are playing it safer in having it based on a well known character that people who saw the movies but have never read any of the novels will be able to understand...

"Playing it safe" is pretty much what every franchise is doing right now, and it's killing creativity and new ideas. Really disappointed if this Aragorn stuff is true.

 

[NyQuil]

"Playing it safe" is pretty much what every franchise is doing right now, and it's killing creativity and new ideas. Really disappointed if this Aragorn stuff is true.

It also gives them a little more latitude than working directly from source material where the nerd army will take issue with every deviation.

 

[Blender]

It also gives them a little more latitude than working directly from source material where the nerd army will take issue with every deviation.

Doing direct prequels like this is just incredibly difficult to do correctly, and honestly almost never done well. Everyone knows where the characters and story end up, so in order to do anything different you have to blow giant holes in existing canon, which just pisses everyone off and really doesn't gain new fans.

 

[NyQuil]

Doing direct prequels like this is just incredibly difficult to do correctly, and honestly almost never done well. Everyone knows where the characters and story end up, so in order to do anything different you have to blow giant holes in existing canon, which just pisses everyone off and really doesn't gain new fans.

An LOTR series outside of the Hobbit and the trilogy was always going to be tough to execute no matter when you situate it.

From the Silmarils to Ar-Pharazon, Morgoth and Feanor, it's not the most accessible material in the catalogue.

 

[Blender]

An LOTR series outside of the Hobbit and the trilogy was always going to be tough to execute no matter when you situate it.

From the Silmarils to Al-Pharazon, Morgoth and Feanor, it's not the most accessible material in the catalogue.

Sure, but it has lore that spans thousands of years with tons of gaps in it with no material at all. They could have dropped it almost anywhere with entirely new characters that still draws on the world and setting. Since there are also characters that are immortal, you can still tie into them as well. That way you avoid a lot of the land mines involved with setting a series decades before the majority of the established canon.

 

[NyQuil]

Sure, but it has lore that spans thousands of years with tons of gaps in it with no material at all. They could have dropped it almost anywhere with entirely new characters that still draws on the world and setting. Since there are also characters that are immortal, you can still tie into them as well. That way you avoid a lot of the land mines involved with setting a series decades before the majority of the established canon.

I get that.

But like was said by others above, I think maybe Netflix needs a recognizable name.

Oh well, we'll see.

 

[beowulf]

I get that.

But like was said by others above, I think maybe Netflix needs a recognizable name.

Oh well, we'll see.

Amazon for this one!

 

[NyQuil]

Amazon for this one!

My bad!

I keep getting free Prime subscriptions from people so I think I'm good until 2021 or something.

 

[beowulf]

Looks like Peter Jackson does have some involvement with the show, putting together the creative team that will produce it chief among it. Or not, depending on who which article you believe about it. Time will tell I guess.

 

[The Macho King]

LOTR is tapped out. Why hasn't someone scooped up Malazan already.

 

[Tawnos]

LOTR is tapped out. Why hasn't someone scooped up Malazan already.

Or Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms or Wheel of Time or Fire of Heaven or Broken Earth or or or. Plenty of good fantasy material out there. Hell, even a lot of the earlier Magic: The Gathering novels made for a pretty good fantasy storyline and has an extremely well-developed universe.

Point is, I wish they’d stop going to the same well on this stuff. Between this and the GoT spinoff...

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Or Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms or Wheel of Time or Fire of Heaven or Broken Earth or or or. Plenty of good fantasy material out there. Hell, even a lot of the earlier Magic: The Gathering novels made for a pretty good fantasy storyline and has an extremely well-developed universe.

Point is, I wish they’d stop going to the same well on this stuff. Between this and the GoT spinoff...

Wheel of Time is in production at Amazon,

Wheel of Time and Dark Tower TV Series in the Works at Amazon - IGN

 

[Blender]

Or Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms or Wheel of Time or Fire of Heaven or Broken Earth or or or. Plenty of good fantasy material out there. Hell, even a lot of the earlier Magic: The Gathering novels made for a pretty good fantasy storyline and has an extremely well-developed universe.

Point is, I wish they’d stop going to the same well on this stuff. Between this and the GoT spinoff...

This is how the industry is now. It's why there is an endless stream of franchise content like Marvel, Star Wars, etc. and very few new big budget productions.

 

[RandV]

Wheel of Time is in production at Amazon,

Wheel of Time and Dark Tower TV Series in the Works at Amazon - IGN

Oh sweet, the Wheel of Time rights escaped that con artist(?) who held them?

On this topic though I'm kind of worried about Brandon Sanderson's work. The rights to his writings has been bought by a big Chinese company DMG Entertainment, and it's reported they're "fast tracking" a movie adaption of the first Stormlight Archives book, The Way of Kings.

For people not familiar the problem here: Stormlight Archives is Sanderson's big epic series, with only 3 books of a planned 10 completed. This is my #1 favourite fantasy series, but each book is a massive 1200 page monster and I'm not sure if you can fit each one into a single movie. Furthermore before starting on the series he'd always wanted to do Sanderson wrote a much more modestly size series known as the Mistborn trilogy that are perfectly sized and would be amazing for a movie adaption.

So basically what should be getting done here is while DMG says they're planning on doing the Mistborn as well, that just should be the one that's first in line giving Sanderson time to complete more Stormlight books. The guy is a production machine, so if they did Mistborn first by the time they're done that we'll probably have book 5 or 6 of Stormlight released.

 

[Tawnos]

Wheel of Time is in production at Amazon,

Wheel of Time and Dark Tower TV Series in the Works at Amazon - IGN

Did not know that. Cool.

I will say that I don’t know just how much appetite there is for this genre. Most of the GoT fans I know have never read or seen anything other than that and LotR.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I forgot the Tolkien estate is still holding to the rights of all things Silmarillion for dear life so they can’t do any series outside of the 3rd era.

It really is a shame because all the stuff immediately surrounding the original trilogy is definitely tapped out, but there is a wealth of potential in 1st or 2nd era stories if they had the rights.

Be down for someone to try and adapt Discworld to TV

 

[Emperoreddy]

This is how the industry is now. It's why there is an endless stream of franchise content like Marvel, Star Wars, etc. and very few new big budget productions.

High fantasy is still a risky proposition to studios. They are very expensive, and really easy to turn into a farce compared to some other genres.

There were a ton of attempts to get another high fantasy franchise off the ground in the wake of LotR, but with very little success.

Plus even what we get is more grounded then high fantasy.

 

[CTC]

Or Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms or Wheel of Time or Fire of Heaven or Broken Earth or or or. Plenty of good fantasy material out there. Hell, even a lot of the earlier Magic: The Gathering novels made for a pretty good fantasy storyline and has an extremely well-developed universe.

Point is, I wish they’d stop going to the same well on this stuff. Between this and the GoT spinoff...

I would love a forgotten realms series!

 

[John Price]

Amazon is Open to Peter Jackson Being Involved in Their 'Lord of the Rings' Series [TCA 2019]