We’re not far away now from the official premiere of The Lord of the Rings upcoming TV series on Amazon Prime Video, The Rings of Power.
The brand new series, which will take place thousands of years before the events of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, is said to be one of the most expensive ever made.
The show will star His Dark Materials’ Morfydd Clark and Game of Thrones’ Robert Amarayo as elves Galadriel and Elrond during the Second Age of Middle-Earth.
It will be based on the appendices of JRR Tolkien’s The Lords of the Rings novels, as well as The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-Earth.
The series has been developed by showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay, alongside several executive producers, including Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul writer Gennifer Hutchinson.
Where can I watch The Rings of Power?
The Rings of Power will be released on Amazon Prime Video.
The Rings of Power was reportedly bought by Amazon for $250 million (£213 million) and committed to five seasons of production – the cost for which is rumoured to total $1 billion (£855 million). This would make it the most expensive TV show ever produced.
It will not be the first fantasy adaptation on the platform. Popular series The Wheel of Time, which stars Rosamund Pike and Zoe Robbins, has been renewed for a 2nd and 3rd season already.
That series is based on the events of a series of novels published by late author Robert Jordan. Jordan’s novels follow incidents in an unnamed world as Moiraine (played by Pike) tracks down those with the power to move the series’ titular wheel.
When is the premiere date?
The series will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on September 2 in the UK, with the first episode, entitled Shadow of the Past, and its follow-up available to all subscribers on the platform at the same time.
The premiere arrives five years after the Tolkien Estate and Warner Bros., the studio behind both of Peter Jackson’s trilogies, reached a court settlement. The Tolkien Estate then began offering the rights to a TV series based on Tolkien’s books, and Amazon won the bidding war.
As a fan of the series, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was personally involved with the negotiations, hoping to secure the rights to an ambitious fantasy series that could rival Game of Thrones.
Will every episode be available at once?
The first two episodes of The Rings of Power will be made available on September 2 in the UK. Episodes will then be released on a weekly basis from September 9 until October 14, which is when the season finale will be made available.
The first season will consist of eight episodes.
While Netflix still releases entire seasons in bulk, the traditional weekly release format has proven to be very successful for other streaming platforms like Disney Plus – shows such as WandaVision and The Mandalorian have gained huge success off traditional release structures.
Watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime Video from September.
