There were hints during the start of November, that a planned TV show based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings might be around the corner through Amazon. There is good news for everyone, that which seemed more like a possibility, now looks a thing for sure; Amazon has officially announced that they succeeded in getting the TV rights for the book series!
Not only this, but Amazon has also committed to more than one season. Though, this isn’t what you think: there is a major change here. Instead of the much-beloved trilogy, the TV show would be a prequel to it, basing the story prior the events that happened in the very first movie.
According to the head of scripted series at Amazon Studios, Sharon Tal Yguado, “The Lord of the Rings is a cultural phenomenon that has captured the imagination of generations of fans through literature and the big screen,” He further said in a statement that, “We are honored to be working with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line on this exciting collaboration for television and are thrilled to be taking The Lord of the Rings fans on a new epic journey in Middle Earth.”
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We all know one of the major reasons for the success of the LOTR franchise; the director Peter Jackson was simply amazing by paying extra attention to every detail and not just for the LOTR, but also for the Hobbit series. Therefore, it won’t be much surprising if the much larger fanbase and more importantly Amazon would want to delve into the hassle of creating an equally good TV series.
The reason being the Amazon Studio’s new ultimatum; they want a show to have a worldwide fan base as that of the Game of Thrones, with a worldwide appeal. The problem just lies in the fact that the original LOTR trilogy has succeeded so much, that it’s nearly impossible to create an equally good adaption let alone a better one. Hence, Amazon had a simple solution for this, have a different storyline.
The Amazon Studios revealed in their statement that they are more towards to “explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring,”. Furthermore, there might be a spin-off series too along with it. It necessarily implies that this TV series is going to consist of the events before the Frodo Baggins getting the Ring.
Hence, Amazon has a brilliant opportunity to introduce their own storyline and characters, the way they deem fit. There might also be a possibility that by doing this, the studio would be able to add elements like sex and violence to the theme as well, which would help garner more viewership like Game of Thrones.
Moreover, there was much speculation around the price for which Amazon had bought the rights, but according to a report from Deadline, Amazon wasn’t the only contending for the rights. There were Netflix and HBO originally in line too. One thing is for sure that the rights alone cost around $200-$250 million.
What we all can do is just sit back and relax and just hope that this adaptation turns out to be even better than the best of the best trilogies.
