The Lord Of The Rings The Rings Of Power 4k

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Aug 3, 2024, 11:37:53 AM8/3/24

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an American fantasy television series developed by J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay for the streaming service Amazon Prime Video. Based on J. R. R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth, primarily material from the appendices of the novel The Lord of the Rings, the series is set thousands of years before the novel and depicts the major events of Middle-earth's Second Age. It is produced by Amazon Studios in association with New Line Cinema.

Amazon acquired the television rights for The Lord of the Rings from the Tolkien Estate in November 2017, making a five-season production commitment worth at least US$1 billion. This would make it the most expensive television series ever made. Payne and McKay were hired in July 2018 for their first credited roles. They developed the story by bridging Second Age references in the appendices with original material, in consultation with the estate and Tolkien lore experts. Per the requirements of Amazon's deal with the estate, the series is not a continuation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. Despite this, the producers intended to evoke the films using similar production design, younger versions of film characters, and a main theme by Howard Shore who composed the music for both film trilogies. Bear McCreary composed the series' original score.

A large international cast was hired and filming for the eight-episode first season took place in New Zealand, where the films were produced, from February 2020 to August 2021 (including a production break of several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Amazon moved production for future seasons to the United Kingdom. Filming for the second season took place there from October 2022 to June 2023, finishing amid the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Work on a potential third season has begun.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiered on September 1, 2022, with its first two episodes. The rest of the eight-episode first season was released through October. Amazon said the season was the most-watched of any Prime Video original series, and it received generally positive reviews from critics. The second season is scheduled to be released from August to October 2024.

Set thousands of years before the events of the novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, the series is based on the author's history of Middle-earth. It begins during a time of relative peace and covers the major events of Middle-earth's Second Age: the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the island kingdom of Nmenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men.[1] These events take place over thousands of years in Tolkien's works but are condensed for the series.[2]

In July 2017, a lawsuit was settled between Warner Bros., the studio behind Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, and the estate of author J. R. R. Tolkien upon whose books those films were based. With the two sides "on better terms", they began offering the rights to a potential television series based on Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to several outlets, including Amazon, Netflix, and HBO,[21] with a starting price of US$200 million.[2] HBO pitched a remake of the Lord of the Rings films which Tolkien's estate was not interested in, and Netflix pitched multiple connected series focusing on characters such as Aragorn and Gandalf which reportedly "completely freaked out the estate". Amazon did not pitch a specific story but promised to work closely with Tolkien's estate so they could "protect Tolkien's legacy", which the estate felt they were unable to do with previous adaptations.[22] Amazon emerged as the frontrunner by September 2017 and entered negotiations.[23][24] Uncommonly for programming developments at the studio, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was personally involved with the negotiations.[24] Bezos was a personal fan of The Lord of the Rings,[2] and had previously given Amazon Studios a mandate to develop an ambitious fantasy series of comparable scale to HBO's Game of Thrones.[21]

The first season was reported in May 2018 to be focusing on a young Aragorn.[27] Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, said a month later that the deal for the series had only just been officially completed.[28] The studio met more than 30 potential writers,[29] including the Russo brothers and Anthony McCarten,[22] and asked for story pitches based on anything in Tolkien's The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and its appendices. These included prequel stories focused on characters such as Aragorn, Gimli, and Gandalf.[30][31] J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay pitched a series that explored the major events of Middle-earth's Second Age, thousands of years before The Lord of the Rings, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the island kingdom of Nmenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men.[6] These events were covered in a five-minute prologue in the Lord of the Rings films,[32] and the pair wanted to expand this into "50 hours of television".[2] In contrast with the experienced writers being interviewed, Payne and McKay had only done unproduced or uncredited writing. They were championed to Amazon by director J. J. Abrams who worked with them on an unproduced Star Trek film,[2][22] and were hired to develop the series in July 2018.[33] Payne said their pitch felt like "an amazing, untold story" that was "worthy of Tolkien",[30] and McKay added, "We didn't want to do a side thing. A spinoff or the origin story of something else. We wanted to find a huge Tolkienian mega epic, and Amazon" agreed.[34]

Jackson said in December 2018 that he and his film producing partners would read some scripts for the series and offer notes on them, but he later stated that this did not happen. Amazon explained that the deal to acquire the television rights for The Lord of the Rings required them to keep the series distinct from Jackson's films, and Tolkien's estate were reportedly against Jackson's involvement in the project.[35] Payne and McKay were confirmed as showrunners and executive producers in July 2019, when the project's full creative team was revealed.[36][37] Additional executive producers included Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, J. A. Bayona, Beln Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado.[36][37][38] Prime Video officially ordered a second season in November 2019,[25] and announced the series' full title, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, in January 2022. Payne and McKay felt the title could "live on the spine of a book next to J. R. R. Tolkien's other classics".[1] In August 2023, Production Weekly included a third season of The Rings of Power in their report of upcoming projects in development.[39] By the end of February 2024, a third season had not yet been ordered and a writers' room had not been opened, but Payne and McKay had started outlining the season's story.[40]

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are set during the Third Age of Middle-earth, while the First and Second Ages are explored in other Tolkien works such as The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth. Because Amazon only acquired the television rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the writers had to identify all of the references to the Second Age in those books and create a story that bridged those passages. These are primarily in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, but also in certain chapters and songs.[6] Tolkien's estate were prepared to veto any changes from his established narrative,[26] including anything that contradicted what Tolkien wrote in other works.[6] The writers were free to add characters or details,[26] and worked with the estate and Tolkien lore experts to ensure these were still "Tolkienian".[6] They referenced letters that Tolkien wrote about his works and mythology for additional context on the setting and characters.[6][41] Simon Tolkien, a novelist and the grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien, consulted on the series and helped develop its story and character arcs. He is credited as a "series consultant".[42] The showrunners disagreed with suggestions that the series was only "vaguely connected" to Tolkien's writings. McKay said they felt it was "deeply, deeply connected" and a "story we're stewarding that was here before us and was waiting in those books" to be told.[43] A disclaimer is featured in the series' end credits stating that some elements are "inspired by, though not contained in, the original source material".[44]

Payne and McKay knew the series was expected to run for five seasons and were able to plan elements of the final season, including the series' final shot, while working on the first.[45] Because they were unable to adapt dialogue from Tolkien's Second Age stories, the writers attempted to repurpose dialogue that they did have access to while also taking inspiration from religious texts and poetry. They tailored the dialogue to different characters using dialects and poetic meters.[6] Leith McPherson returned from the Hobbit films as dialect coach and noted that Tolkien's fictional languages evolve over time, so they are different for the Second Age compared to the Third. The series' Elves mostly speak Quenya, a language described as "Elvish Latin" that is often just used for spellcasting in the Third Age.[46] Dwarvish and Orkish are also heard, along with English, Scottish, and Irish dialects.[46][47] The biggest deviation made from Tolkien's works, which was approved by the estate and lore experts, was to condense the Second Age from thousands of years to a short period of time. This avoided human characters frequently dying due to their relatively short lifespans and allowed major characters from later in the timeline to be introduced earlier in the series.[2] The showrunners considered using non-linear storytelling instead, but felt this would prevent the audience from emotionally investing in the series. They said many real-life historical dramas also condense events like this, and felt they were still respecting the "spirit and feeling" of Tolkien's writings.[48]